By Adam Pagnucco.
Check this out, folks: with all of the early votes counted, almost all of the election day votes counted and maybe 35-40% of the mail ballots counted, Prince George’s County Executive Angela Alsobrooks is leading Congressman David Trone in Montgomery County. Trone has run in parts of MoCo for five straight elections and has blanketed the county in TV ads for years. The screenshot below shows the current distribution of votes in MoCo as of this writing.
A word of caution. Trone may yet win MoCo when all of the mail ballots are counted. But let’s compare this to Prince George’s County, where Trone trolled Alsobrooks with dissident endorsements only to see her leading at this writing by 47 points.
This brings home a fundamental truth about MoCo politics: we are not one monolithic jurisdiction. Because of our size and diversity, we are the equivalent of several medium-sized jurisdictions who happen to share common county borders. These jurisdictions differ in race, education, economics and political views and they vote differently. All political analysts must bear this in mind when analyzing us.
My hunch is that Alsobrooks won most of the areas east of Georgia Avenue and perhaps inside the Beltway, while Trone won in the north and west. We shall see if the final stats bear that out. But all statewide candidates must remember:
Never take MoCo for granted.