By Adam Pagnucco.
It’s happening a lot now. Nearly every day, someone will ask me to predict who will win next year’s county executive race. I get it, that race is hugely important to the county and it’s fun to talk about.
But I’m not biting. There will be no predictions… yet.
So why am I chickening out? (Yeah, I admit it!) The reason is that there are too many wild cards out there that could push the race in one direction or the other. These things matter and I have seen them make a difference before.
Here are a few of them.
What is the full roster of candidates?
As expected, Council Members Evan Glass, Will Jawando and Andrew Friedson are all running. They’re all good candidates with a shot to win. But other candidates could matter too. Will there be an outsider, maybe one with money? Will there be a high-profile female candidate? This question is huge since roughly 60% of the county’s Democratic primary electorate is female. It’s easy to see a strong female candidate cracking at least 40% of the vote in a large field.
Another thing – the geography of candidates matters. In the 2018 Democratic primary for executive, David Blair led Marc Elrich by 0.5 points in Bethesda and 0.9 points in Chevy Chase. In the 2022 Democratic primary for executive, Blair led Elrich by 6.0 points in Bethesda and 4.9 points in Chevy Chase. Why did Blair’s leads grow? One reason is that in 2018, Council Member Roger Berliner and Delegate Bill Frick, who represented all or part of those areas, were in the race and no comparable candidates were in 2022. In retrospect, Berliner and Frick siphoned votes that would have otherwise gone to Blair and they made the difference in that race. Could something like that happen again?
Where will the Apple drop?
In every cycle, I get told by politicians that the Apple Ballot’s influence is in decline. Oh really? Then why do you guys keep giving MCPS nine-digit increases? Don’t tell me it’s for the kids!
The Apple Ballot matters A LOT. Voters recognize it and the teachers aggressively promote it. They do more to push out their endorsement than any other interest group. The Apple absolutely dominated last year’s school board election, knocking out three incumbents for the first time in decades. No, it won’t matter as much next year because the candidates will have real money and other groups will play too. But it will still be a big deal.
I don’t expect Friedson to get this particular endorsement but Jawando and Glass will compete hard for it. If either of them gets it, it will be a MAJOR plus. It’s also possible that the teachers will sit it out, as they did in the 2006 race between Ike Leggett and Steve Silverman. But I bet they won’t since the teachers know the power they wield and they like to play.
What will the Post do?
For many years, the Post’s endorsement was sometimes a counter-weight and other times an enhancement of progressive endorsements. But the Post’s role is shrinking. It stopped endorsing state legislator candidates after 2014 and recently stopped endorsing county school board candidates. It did not endorse in the recent special election for Prince George’s county executive. Yes, the Post went out of its way to tell me that it plans to endorse next year, but who really knows?
Also of concern is the timing of any endorsement. Back in 2022, I laid out how the Post’s extremely late endorsement of Blair hurt him in that year’s executive primary. If the Post wishes to have a real impact, it must endorse earlier to let its candidate have time to publicize its endorsement. If it does not, it will matter less.
Finally, the Post’s various management gyrations may hurt the influence of its endorsements. That’s hard to measure but it’s a real thing for many readers, especially for MoCo Democrats.
What will outside groups do?
Public financing, which is now commonly but not universally used by MoCo candidates, was supposed to minimize the role of outside groups by reducing their direct contributions to campaigns. I generally like public financing for other reasons, but it has totally NOT had that impact. Instead, outside groups now run their own campaigns for or against candidates.
And these campaigns have had a big impact on the last two county executive elections. In 2018, Casa in Action and a coalition of labor unions spent a combined $246,000 through a PAC attacking Blair and supporting Elrich in the primary and general elections. In 2022, a Super PAC funded by a Facebook billionaire and a group of developers spent more than $800,000 on TV ads attacking Elrich.
What will these groups do this time? Will Casa, unions and other progressive groups spend money attacking Friedson? Will developers and other real estate interests spend money attacking Jawando? (He is particularly vulnerable on crime.) And could the ultimate beneficiary be Glass, who is the least polarizing of the three? Keep an eye on all of this, folks!
What will turnout be?
Consider this. In all of the MoCo Democratic gubernatorial primaries in which a Democrat has been in the White House since 1990 (1994, 1998, 2010, 2014 and 2022), Dem turnout has averaged 32%. In all of the MoCo Democratic gubernatorial primaries in which a Republican has been in the White House since 1990 (1990, 2002, 2006 and 2018), Dem turnout has averaged 41%.
That’s a big spread of +9 points in turnout when GOP presidents are in office. Why is that? My theory has to do with the focus of MoCo Democrats on national politics. When a Democrat is in the White House, they are content. When a Republican is in the White House, they are upset about something (the War in Iraq, Hurricane Katrina, the craziness of Trump’s first term, etc.) and what do they do about it? They come out and VOTE.
Well, the craziness of Trump’s second term FAR exceeds what he did in his first term and MoCo Dems (like a lot of other Dems) are furious. My hunch is that next year will see record turnout, at least in absolute numbers, for MoCo Dems in a gubernatorial primary.
If I’m right, there will be TONS of Dems voting who have heard little or nothing about Glass, Jawando, Friedson or any of the other candidates before mail and TV ads start going out. There could also be a lot of first-time voters.
This is the wildest of wild cards. Identifying and connecting with these new voters could be the principal challenge of all of these campaigns (and the outside groups too). In fact, if I were working for one of these campaigns as I worked for Blair in 2022 (and I am not!), I would be obsessed with this question. Because right now, I can’t answer it.
And that’s why there won’t be any predictions from me. Not for a long time and maybe not at all.