By Adam Pagnucco.
In the old days, most of Upcounty was contained in County Council District 2, which hugged the Frederick and Howard county borders in a rough tilted C. Since the current council structure was established in 1990, the district was represented by a Republican (Nancy Dacek) and two somewhat moderate Democrats (Mike Knapp and Craig Rice). Then came at-large Council Member Evan Glass, who authored an expansion of the council by two new districts. The result was that much of the old Upcounty district was split into two: the west side (District 2) and the east side (District 7). We have already discussed Marilyn Balcombe’s victory in the west, so today we explore the east.
The race in Council District 7 had seven candidates but it was dominated by two women with famous husbands: Dawn Luedtke (who is married to House Majority Leader Eric Luedtke) and Jacqueline Manger (who is married to former MoCo police chief and current U.S. Capitol Police Chief Tom Manger). While Eric Luedtke and Tom Manger are well known to county insiders, Dawn Luedtke and Jacqueline Manger were not. As a result, expectations of this race were not well set when it began.
Jacqueline Manger turned out to be a good fundraiser, more than doubling Dawn Luedtke’s total. Both women used traditional fundraising accounts. The table below shows how they and the other candidates compared in campaign finances.
Manger may have had the money but Luedtke had a huge majority of the endorsements. Luedtke’s most prominent supporters included almost all of the major players in MoCo elections, such as MCEA, the Washington Post, MCGEO, SEIU Local 500, the career and volunteer fire fighters, Casa in Action and more. Manger’s biggest endorsement came from the Sierra Club. That’s a nice endorsement to have, but when a candidate gets both the unions and the Post – as Luedtke did – that candidate is usually tough to beat.
Luedtke and Manger combined to receive 58% of the vote with 36% going to Luedtke and 23% going to Manger. No other candidate received more than 11 points. The chart below shows how Luedtke and Manger performed in the district’s 8 major local areas. (See my methodology post for definitions.) Luedtke appears in blue and Manger in red.
These areas do not have equal roles in the district. The largest are Gaithersburg (with 25% of the votes cast), Olney (24%) and Montgomery Village (20%). That doesn’t matter much as Luedtke won every one of these areas, leaving Manger with no opportunity to break through. Ben Wikner finished a close third in Montgomery Village, but aside from that, the other candidates offered limited relevance.
Eric Luedtke has not been shy about criticizing the county government’s neglect of Upcounty, most recently going after the county council for taking state money for the Bowie Mill Bikeway while failing to accelerate it. Now the House Majority Leader will actually be married to a council member. How will the Luedtkes’ advocacy for Upcounty play with the rest of the council? It will be an interesting topic to examine in the next term.