By Adam Pagnucco.
Council Member Will Jawando finished second in the council at-large primary. He finished first in Takoma Park, Downtown Silver Spring, Silver Spring East County, Glenmont/Norbeck, Burtonsville and heavily Black precincts. His weakest performances were in Potomac, Damascus and Dickerson, where he finished fourth. Overall, Jawando ran a strong race and is one of the leaders of the current county council. Who else did his voters support in the primary?
Here is how Jawando voters voted in the county executive primary.
Among Jawando voters, County Executive Marc Elrich led David Blair by ten points. Hans Riemer also slightly over-performed. This makes sense given that Jawando’s eastern and southeastern geography overlapped with Elrich’s best areas.
Now let’s look at how Jawando voters voted in the council at-large primary.
In addition to Jawando (of course!), Jawando voters would have elected Evan Glass, Gabe Albornoz and Laurie-Anne Sayles, in that order. Tom Hucker would have finished fifth. Jawando’s percentage among his own voters exceeded 25% because of under-voting in the at-large race, in which voters do not use all four of their votes.
Jawando voters voted for the same candidates in the council district races as all voters. Among Jawando voters, over-performers included Dawn Luedtke (+8.2 points), Natali Fani-Gonzalez (+7.5 points) and Kate Stewart (+5.3 points). These candidates shared many endorsements with Jawando and Stewart ran in some of his best geography. Marilyn Balcombe under-performed among Jawando voters by 5.2 points.
One of Jawando’s biggest strengths was his lead among all council at-large candidates among bullet voters. His 2,651 bullet votes exceeded Scott Goldberg (1,973) and Evan Glass (1,546). The percentage of his votes that came from bullet votes (3.4%) trailed only Goldberg (3.9%) and was almost double that of Glass (1.8%). These bullet voters will make a devoted starting core of support for Jawando’s race(s) for higher office.