By Adam Pagnucco.
It happens in every cycle. A local Republican tells me, “We have great candidates this year. You should write about them.” They go on to lose overwhelmingly. And when the next election comes around, I think, “What’s going to be different this time?”
In 2026, nothing is different. Preliminary results indicate that, yet again, Montgomery County Republican candidates are getting crushed. The party has not won a MoCo partisan race for county office or state legislature since 2002.
Let’s go back to September 11, 2026. Republican county executive candidate Esther Wells sent out a blast email titled “There is an elephant in the room…”, in which she wrote:
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Okay, let’s talk about the elephant in the room! Some people don’t believe that Esther Wells, CPA can win, because for years Montgomery County has voted exclusively to put Democrats in County government positions. Some people have even forgotten that there is a General Election!
We’ve mapped out the numbers, and there is real path to victory for Esther Wells, CPA.
The primary results show there is significant room for Esther Wells, CPA to grow her support and win:
- Republicans make up roughly one in five voters in Montgomery County, and Esther Wells, CPA overwhelmingly won the Republican primary, with 75% of the vote.
- In contrast, 60% of Democratic voters did not vote for Will Jawando, in fact only 13% of all registered Democrats voted for him.
- Independent voters did not vote in the primary, meaning a large portion of the electorate had no chance to voice their opinion of Will Jawando and his tax and spend record.
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So Wells believed that a combination of moderate Democrats, independents and Republicans could vault her ahead of the Democratic nominee, Council Member Will Jawando. There was a time when that path could put a MoCo Republican in office.
Consider MoCo’s first county executive, Republican James Gleason. He won the county’s first two executive elections, both squeakers, in 1970 and 1974. His tenure was an unhappy one. He voluntarily departed the job in 1978, complaining to the Washington Post about “paralysis by analysis,” “the continuous ‘reinventing of the wheel’ by inexperienced, newly elected officials and ‘too many units of government.’” The Post even quoted him as moaning, “I just don’t think I can take much more of this crap.” Nevertheless, MoCo Republicans continued running for office and sometimes won.
The 1990s were the heyday of MoCo’s GOP. Two Republicans sat on the council (District 1’s Betty Ann Krahnke and District 2’s Nancy Dacek), several Republicans represented the county in the General Assembly and the county’s prize Congressional seat, District 8, was held by Connie Morella. From 1994 through 1998, one-quarter of the county’s state and county elected officials were Republicans.
But then the party’s fortunes headed south. Consider Morella. After winning an open seat race in 1986 and defeating Delegate Peter Franchot in 1988, Morella hit her peak in 1990 by winning 79% of the vote. Her percentage dropped in every election since. In 2002, Annapolis Democrats gerrymandered her district, pushing it all the way into Prince George’s County and enabling District 18 State Senator Chris Van Hollen to finally knock her off. Morella’s vote percentages, which are symbolic of the county GOP’s trajectory, are shown below.
Most of the MoCo GOP’s misfortunes are tied to national politics, which are far more important to most MoCo voters than local issues. Think about what has been going on with the national Republican Party over the last 30 years. Newt Gingrich. Tom Delay. Dick Armey. The impeachment of Bill Clinton. The Iraq War. Hurricane Katrina. The Tea Party. Every one of these things hardened the backs of MoCo Democrats, and many MoCo unaffiliated voters, against anything linked to the GOP. By 2006, the last MoCo Republican county council member (District 1’s Howie Denis) and state legislator (District 15 Delegate Jean Cryor) were defeated.
And then came Donald Trump.
For Democrats, Trump is the great unifier. Contempt for Trump is the one thing on which virtually all Democrats agree. From Democratic Socialists on the left all the way to Blue Dogs in the center, there is something in Trump’s policy mix for all of them to hate: his coziness with Russian dictator Vladimir Putin, tariffs, inflation, abuses by ICE, racism, abuses of allies around the world, rampant kleptocracy, destruction of the federal government and, above all, January 6th and his attempted corruption of elections. These things overwhelm any local issues that Wells and other county Republicans might raise. A national Republican Party led by Larry Hogan might win some elections here. But a Republican Party led by Trump and his acolytes will never rise above their depredations.
That doesn’t mean that county Republicans are completely irrelevant. They can still exercise influence through ballot questions, which do not bear an R next to them in the voting booth. Such questions, especially concerning budget and taxes, can tap into the growing anxiety over the cost of living that MoCo residents of all parties feel. And whether one agrees with them or not, meaningful political competition is useful.
It’s just not going to occur through partisan candidate elections. Not here. And probably not for a loooooong time.