By Adam Pagnucco.
Marilyn Balcombe, the former president and CEO of the Gaithersburg-Germantown Chamber of Commerce, won her Council District 2 primary easily. Coming off a respectable fifth-place finish in the 2018 council at-large primary, she led in fundraising and used the Washington Post’s endorsement to get 49% of the vote. Her opponents included former Jamie Raskin aide Will Roberts, who earned most progressive endorsements and received 28% of the vote and Lorna Phillips Forde, another 2018 at-large candidate who got 23%. Balcombe won every local area in her district except the one Dickerson precinct, which Roberts took by one vote.
Given her background, her geography and the Post endorsement, the chart below – which shows how Balcombe voters voted in the county executive primary – contains no surprises. Among Balcombe voters, David Blair beat Marc Elrich by more than 20 points and collected a majority of the vote.
In the council at-large race, Balcombe voters would have elected Scott Goldberg instead of Laurie-Anne Sayles and ranked Gabe Albornoz ahead of Will Jawando. That’s also what voters for Blair and Andrew Friedson did.
Accumulating these results, what we see is a Blair-Friedson-Balcombe-Goldberg axis – white candidates with center-left messages, endorsements from the Washington Post and strength in the I-270 corridor and points west. It may not be a coincidence that the two district-based candidates – Friedson and Balcombe – were elected while the two countywide candidates – Blair and Goldberg – were not (although Blair came very close). This is the centrist pole of MoCo politics, and because their votes were somewhat clustered together, it seems that many county voters were aware of it.
More data to come!