By Adam Pagnucco.
As of election night, the only local MoCo race in question was the Board of Education At-Large contest pitting Brenda Diaz against Omar Lazo. On the morning after the election, Lazo had a 4,480 vote lead (up 1.7%) overall but Diaz had a 1,444 vote lead in mail ballots (up 3.3%). With two more batches of mail ballots counted, has anything changed?
The short answer: Yes. A LOT.
When an election is tight and the losing candidate leads in mail ballots, the ultimate result can change. We saw that in 2022, when County Executive Marc Elrich trailed challenger David Blair on election night but eked out a win by mail. We saw it again in this year’s council at-large primary, when Karla Silvestre initially trailed Fatmata Barrie but pulled ahead in mail to win.
That same scenario could have worked in the school board at-large general election. In a projection I published last week, I noted that Diaz had a 3.3 point lead in mail ballots, or 51.5% to 48.2% over Lazo. Based on my estimate of how many mail and provisional ballots were still outstanding, I calculated that Diaz would need a 3 point improvement in mail performance to overtake Lazo. That works out to a 54.5% to 45.2% edge over Lazo in all of the potentially remaining mail ballots. (I also assumed that the provisional ballots would have the same candidate percentages as in-person voting, which Lazo won.)
Since that time, the county Board of Elections has counted two more batches of mail ballots.
On November 5, the board counted 8,740 additional mail ballots. Lazo received 5,083 votes (58.2%) and Diaz received 3,632 votes (41.6%). Lazo added 1,451 votes to his lead.
On November 7, the board counted 10,093 additional mail ballots. Lazo received 5,983 votes (59.3%) and Diaz received 4,078 votes (40.4%). Lazo added another 1,905 votes to his lead.
As of this writing, Lazo leads Diaz 7,879 votes overall, or 51.0% to 48.3% over Diaz.
Diaz needed to improve her performance in mail. Instead, Lazo has dramatically improved his performance in mail.
Another problem for Diaz is that the number of ballots remaining is running out. The number of ballots yet to be counted is a crucial number for any trailing candidate.
At this writing, my calculation is that Diaz would need to win at least 62% of remaining mail ballots if my assumptions about mail and provisional votes hold to claim victory. (See this post for my methodology.) That would be a sharp departure from both her election night mail performance and – especially – the two new batches of mail votes.
I am skeptical that that will happen. Accordingly, time is running out for Diaz.