How did Larry Hogan, a Republican commercial real estate broker who had never run for office, pull off such an upset in Maryland’s governor race on Tuesday? By benefiting from a huge drop-off in Democratic turnout in the state’s largest population centers and winning big where it counts for Republicans.
The path to a Republican victory in what is usually a Democratic stronghold begins with holding down the margins in Democrat-rich Baltimore and in Montgomery and Prince George’s Counties. That was exactly what happened on Tuesday night. Although Anthony Brown, the Democratic candidate, won Baltimore with 75 percent of the vote, Prince George’s with 84 percent and Montgomery with 62 percent, his vote totals were far off from the 2010 election, when the Democrat Martin O’Malley won his second term as governor.
Mr. O’Malley won 189,304 more votes than Mr. Brown in the five largest jurisdictions (Montgomery, Prince George’s and Baltimore, and Anne Arundel and Baltimore Counties). That’s 18 percent of the 2010 Democratic governor’s vote that did not turn up for Mr. Brown this year.
It was even worse for Mr. Brown, the state’s current lieutenant governor, in Montgomery County: His vote total was 47,000 less than Mr. O’Malley’s in 2010, but he also ran behind other statewide Democrats this year in the county, which is home to wealthy Washington suburbs. Both Peter Franchot, the state comptroller, and Brian Frosh, who was elected attorney general, garnered at least 12,000 more votes in Montgomery County than Mr. Brown, who would have been Maryland’s first African-American governor.
In Prince George’s County, another area adjacent to Washington, Mr. Hogan’s vote total was slightly larger than that notched by Bob Ehrlich, the Republican candidate for governor in 2010, but that wasn’t the difference. Mr. Brown underperformed by 28,000 votes compared with Mr. O’Malley — especially surprising because Prince George’s has a black majority and is home to Mr. Brown. It may not have hurt with some voters that Mr. Hogan’s father, Lawrence Hogan Sr., served as a congressman and county executive of Prince George’s, but that was in the late 1970s and early 1980s.
Mr. Hogan cemented his victory by winning big in Baltimore County (just outside the city), where statewide Republicans have done well in the past, and in Anne Arundel County, site of the state capital, Annapolis. Mr. Hogan beat Mr. Brown by more than 20 points in Baltimore County; in 2010, Mr. O’Malley tied his Republican opponent there. Mr. Hogan won Anne Arundel with two-thirds of the vote.
Finally, Mr. Hogan ran up the margin in Maryland’s rural areas. While not particularly populous, the areas outside Baltimore and the Washington suburbs are the most sympathetic to Republicans, and Mr. Hogan dominated them. He polled ahead of Mr. Ehrlich in every one of these counties (in fact, in all Maryland jurisdictions, including Baltimore).
Overall turnout for the governor’s race was down 11 percent from 2010, yet Mr. Hogan’s vote totals were on par with Mr. Ehrlich’s or exceeded them in most parts of the state. In Allegheny County, in Maryland’s western panhandle, Mr. Hogan won 14,850 votes, slightly more than Mr. Ehrlich did four years ago. But the drop-off from Mr. O’Malley to Mr. Brown was more precipitous: Mr. O’Malley got 7,933 votes in Allegheny in 2010, compared with Mr. Brown’s 4,363 this year.
That pattern repeated itself all over the state, as some Democrats either opted for Mr. Hogan or did not vote at all. In a stinging rebuke, even Howard County, the home of Mr. Brown’s running mate, Ken Ulman, flipped to Mr. Hogan this year, helping to bring divided government (the Democrats still control both houses of the legislature) to Maryland’s statehouse for the first time since 2006.
An earlier version of this article misspelled the surname of Anthony Brown’s running mate in the Maryland governor’s race. His name is Ken Ulman, not Ullman.
