By Adam Pagnucco.
Yes dear readers, I am aware that the title of this post may be the most boring title of all time. But this post is necessary because I’m about to kick off my analysis of MoCo’s Democratic primary election results and it is here that I explain how I’m doing this. I will refer back to this methodology summary in future posts.
Campaign Finance, 2022 Primary
These records come from the state’s campaign finance website and apply to this cycle as of the pre-general 1 reports. The starting point for this data is the 2019 annual report. For candidates who won the 2022 primary, contributions through the end of July 2022 are included; later ones are attributed to the general election. For candidates who lost the primary, all contributions are included since they won’t have to pay for a general election. Tabulations of public matching funds for publicly financed candidates are taken from the county’s July 2022 Public Election Fund report. Marc Elrich’s recount fund is not included since it was established after the primary. Self-funding includes money from spouses when known.
Precinct Data
The state released primary election data at the precinct level in August. This is my basis for regional and local area results. In earlier years, precinct data included only election day results, but since the 2020 general election, it has included all voting modes.
In the past, I allocated precincts to communities based on their voting locations. In this cycle, I rely on where the most voters in each precinct actually live. That changed the community assignment of a handful of precincts from my past analyses. Also, many precinct boundaries were changed this year. As a result, precinct results at the community level (for example, Rockville, Gaithersburg, etc.) are not strictly comparable to prior analyses I have done.
Here are a few definitions I use.
Democratic Crescent: These are the areas inside and near the Beltway that sent Jamie Raskin to Congress in 2016. This region includes Bethesda, Cabin John, Chevy Chase, Kensington, Takoma Park and the Silver Spring precincts inside the Beltway.
Upcounty: This region includes precincts in Boyds, Brookeville, Clarksburg, Damascus, Dickerson, Gaithersburg, Germantown, Montgomery Village, Olney, Poolesville, Sandy Spring, Washington Grove and smaller nearby communities.
Rest of County: Everything not in the crescent or Upcounty.
Glenmont/Norbeck: Precincts in zip code 20906 other than those in Leisure World.
Leisure World: Precincts 13-54, 13-69 and 13-71. Leisure World is a large retirement community that regularly leads the county in turnout rate. It is its own distinct world that must be separately analyzed from the communities around it.
North Potomac: Precincts 6-4, 6-5, 6-6, 6-8 and 6-13. This area lies between Gaithersburg and Potomac and is heavily Asian.
Silver Spring Downtown: Silver Spring precincts inside the Beltway. In some analyses, I use zip codes 20901 and 20910 as a proxy.
Silver Spring East County: Precincts in zip codes 20903, 20904 and 20905 outside the Beltway. This area encompasses most of the upper Route 29 corridor and, along with Burtonsville, has the largest concentration of Black residents in the county.
Wheaton: Precincts in zip code 20902.
Additionally, analyses of certain state or county districts will have some customized geographic cuts.
Racial Concentrations in Precincts
The county occasionally shows patterns of voting by race. To approximate those patterns, I used census data employed by the county council in their most recent redistricting to develop lists of the 25 precincts with the highest percentages of Asian, Black, Latino and White residents. Those precincts are located in the following local areas.
Top 25 Asian precincts: Clarksburg (6 precincts), Potomac (5), Rockville (5), Germantown (3), North Potomac (3), Gaithersburg (2), Boyds (1).
Top 25 Black precincts: Silver Spring East County (11 precincts), Silver Spring Downtown (7), Glenmont/Norbeck (3), Wheaton (2), Burtonsville (1), Takoma Park (1).
Top 25 Latino precincts: Gaithersburg (8 precincts), Glenmont/Norbeck (7), Rockville (3), Montgomery Village (2), Silver Spring Downtown (2), Wheaton (2), Germantown (1).
Top 25 White precincts: Bethesda (6 precincts), Chevy Chase (5), Gaithersburg (2), Kensington (2), Leisure World (2), Poolesville (2), Dickerson (1), Olney (1), Rockville (1), Silver Spring East County (1), Washington Grove (1), Wheaton (1).
That’s all for now. On to the election results soon!