Race Analysis

Maryland is increasingly a city-state -- all of its congressional districts are anchored partially in either metropolitan Washington, D.C., or Baltimore. The state has long been a Democratic stronghold.  In the 19th and early 20th centuries, a Democratic machine in Baltimore combined with voters on the culturally southern Eastern Shore to form a Democratic majority. In the later 20th century, the Democrats lost the Eastern Shore but found increasingly receptive voters in the suburbs of D.C. Post-Civil War, the state has elected only six Republican governors, and only one has managed a second term.

The last Republican governor, Bob Ehrlich, won an open seat against Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, a disappointing candidate for Democrats, in 2002. Ehrlich had a tempestuous relationship with the Democratic legislature, and in 2006 he was defeated by Baltimore Mayor Martin O’Malley. O’Malley handily won a rematch with Ehrlich in 2010.

Anthony Brown, O’Malley’s lieutenant governor, won the Democratic primary, and will face off against Republican Larry Hogan.  In a Democratic state like Maryland, Brown has a significant edge, notwithstanding the headwinds Democrats in general are facing this year and Brown’s oversight of the state’s troubled Obamacare website.