By Adam Pagnucco.
Last week, I reported on a poll of MoCo Democratic voters primarily concerning housing issues by Greater Greater Washington. Well, it turns out that they did not merely ask about housing policy – they also asked about the next county executive race! And they have graciously shared those results with Montgomery Perspective.
First, a note about the poll’s methodology. The poll surveys 505 likely Democratic primary voters and has a margin of error of +/- 4 points for topline results. Data for Progress’s methodology uses a combination of text and web panel respondents rather than traditional phone calls. Three polls by Data for Progress during the 2022 county executive race generally tracked those of two other pollsters (including David Blair’s) and showed a dead heat a month out from the primary. A dead heat with a 32-vote margin for incumbent County Executive Marc Elrich is exactly what happened.
In addition to the housing questions, the poll asked a series of questions about potential county executive candidates and then asked three horse race questions: a race with Elrich in it, a race without Elrich and second choices for each candidate. But for me, the most fascinating results did not relate to horse racing at all.
Read on, dear reader!
Let’s start with a horse race with Elrich in it. Let’s remember that the margin of error is +/- 4 points.
Marc Elrich: 25%
Will Jawando: 9
Evan Glass: 8
Kate Stewart: 5
Andrew Friedson: 4
Gabe Albornoz: 2
Not sure: 46
So “not sure” wins in a landslide. But let’s recognize that this race won’t happen and never would have. First of all, Elrich has just been prohibited by MoCo voters from running for a third consecutive term. And second, if he had been able to run, there is no way that all of these candidates would have gotten in. Most if not all would have stayed at the county council and waited for the seat to open up in 2030.
Now let’s go to a horse race without Elrich. These results were constructed by assigning the second choice preferences of Elrich’s voters to other candidates. Again, the margin of error is +/- 4 points.
Glass: 12%
Jawando: 12
Stewart: 7
Friedson: 5
Albornoz: 3
Not sure: 61
Check out how “not sure” increased by 15 points when Elrich’s 25 points were taken off the board. This means, at least according to this poll, that Elrich’s base is up for grabs. That makes sense, because whether you love him or hate him, there is no one else in county politics quite like Marc Elrich.
The other obvious result is that Glass, Jawando, Stewart and Friedson are all within the margin of error, meaning that they are statistically tied. Combine that with the fact that a majority of primary Democrats are not sure of their choice and this race is starting out as wide open as it could ever be.
Now to the most interesting result. These are the favorables and unfavorables of the council members covered by the poll.
Gabe Albornoz
Favorable: 20%
Unfavorable: 6
Haven’t heard enough to say: 75
Andrew Friedson
Favorable: 15%
Unfavorable: 6
Haven’t heard enough to say: 78
Evan Glass
Favorable: 32%
Unfavorable: 7
Haven’t heard enough to say: 60
Will Jawando
Favorable: 38%
Unfavorable: 13
Haven’t heard enough to say: 50
Kate Stewart
Favorable: 17%
Unfavorable: 4
Haven’t heard enough to say: 79
Check out the “haven’t heard enough to say” numbers. An awful lot of MoCo Democratic primary voters have no idea who these council members are. Jawando, who has run for delegate, the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate in the past, is a partial exception here. His repeated runs for office have built name recognition if nothing else.
I have been looking at polls of county races for roughly 15 years. In the world of 2010-2014, at-large council members had name recognition numbers approaching 50% among Dem primary voters. I also remember two district council members having majority name recognition inside their own districts. Today’s council members do not enjoy such renown.
Why is that? I attribute it to the disintegration of the local news media. When I first moved to the county two decades ago, the Gazette was dropped on my doorstep every Wednesday morning. The Post’s coverage was much more robust than it is now, both on the reporting and editorial sides. The Examiner had local coverage, the Sentinel existed and even the Baltimore Sun had a tidbit or two. The blogging world was also much larger than today, with a hotbed of blogs in Silver Spring.
That world is gone. I am convinced that today’s voters know less about their county than those of past generations, and that is despite the millions the county government spends on communications. That leaves our elections more susceptible to campaigns by outsiders and interest groups. Whether that’s good or bad is subject to debate, but this is the environment which we now inhabit.
This poll offers little guidance on the identity of the next executive (through no fault of its own). And so several weeks ago, I began consulting the gestalt of county politics: the combined wisdom of my source network. (You know who you are!) They have made their picks on who they believe the next executive will be. And their choices shall be revealed, starting tomorrow.
Don’t miss it!!