Category Archives: News
Elections 2018: District 9
Senate District 9
Incumbent: Gail Bates (R)
Filed Challengers: none
Projection: Lean R Hold
Past Results:
2014: Gail Bates (R) 65.8%, Ryan Frederic (D) 34.1%
2010: Allan Kittleman (R) 66.7%, Jim Adams (D) 33.2%
Freshman Senator Gail Bates (R)
Who could run?
- Ryan Frederic – Business owner Ryan Frederic of Glenwood came up short in a very good year for Republicans. There’s always a learning curve to campaigns, and rookie candidates like Frederic can often learn from their mistakes and make a much better showing the second time around. For what it’s worth, Frederic has kept his campaign account open.
- Jon Weinstein – County Councilman from District 1 Jon Weinstein is popular in Ellicott City, which means it’s much more likely that he’ll seek re-election rather than try to make the risky jump to a contested State Senate seat. Still, he is the biggest name Democrats can hope to draw here.
- Tom Coale – The man behind the blog HoCo Rising and the podcast Elevate Maryland might give it a shot. He ran for Delegate from 9B in 2014, winning the Democratic primary convincingly but narrowly losing to former Republican delegate Bob Flanagan in the biggest upset (to me, at least) of the year. From reading his blog, he certainly seems to have his finger on the pulse of Howard County as a whole, but the risk of running in this traditionally Republican district may discourage him from filing.
Here is one of a handful of districts that have been trending in the Democrats’ favor. While Larry Hogan crushed District 9 in 2014, winning 69-29% among Election Day voters, Donald Trump barely managed 50% in this well-educated and quickly suburbanizing district in western Howard County and southern Carroll County. If Democrats want to do more in 2018 than just play defense, which they absolutely must, then they should focus on districts like this one.
House District 9A – 2 members
Incumbents: Trent Kittleman (R), Warren E. Miller (R)
Filed Challengers: none
Projection: Likely R Hold
Past Results:
2014: Trent Kittleman (R) 37.5%, Warren E. Miller (R) 33.1%, Walter E. Carson (D) 15.6%, James Ward Morrow (D) 13.7%
2010: Gail Bates (R) 30.6%, Warren E. Miller (R) 28.0%, Maryann Maher (D) 21.5%, Jonathan Weinstein (D) 19.9%
Del. Warren Miller (R)
The only way Democrats are going to have a chance in District 9 is to improve their performance in the two-member District 9A, which is heavily Republican thanks to rural west county, Sykesville, and Eldersburg. Larry Hogan won here 74-25%, and Trump won 55-38%. Those Trump numbers should put 9A in play for some adventurous Democrats who have deep ties to their communities and are willing to run vigorous campaigns; 17-point margins are being erased all over the country as the President’s popularity continues to plummet.
House District 9B – 1 member
Incumbent: Bob Flanagan (R)
Filed Challengers: Daniel Medinger (D)
Projection: Likely D+1
Past Results:
2014: Bob Flanagan (R) 54.9%, Tom Coale (D) 45.1%
Delegate Bob Flanagan (R)
In 2014, I predicted a Democratic pickup here. Even with a well-funded candidate and a new district that looked favorable to Democrats, it just didn’t happen. That year was also an unusually good year for Republicans nationwide, and it’s looking like 2018 will be just the opposite. While Larry Hogan won here 57-41%, Hillary Clinton won 57-37%, and progressives in Ellicott City are fired up.
Transgender Rights Bill SB 212 Passes House and Senate
The Fairness for All Marylanders Act of 2014 is a huge step forward for equal rights in Maryland, prohibiting many types of discrimination such as housing and employment, explicitly including transgender citizens for the first time.
We have used the roll calls from the House and Senate to compile a list and map of the yeas and nays. The bill passed the Senate with a 32-15 vote; 31 Democrats and 1 Republican voted for it, while 4 Democrats and 11 Republicans voted against it. Two weeks later, the bill passed in the House with a vote of 82-57. All 82 of the yea votes came from Democrats, and 15 Democrats and 40 Republicans voted against it. Two Delegates, one from each party, were recorded as “absent.” The full table of votes is available at the General Assembly website, as well as below.
State Senate
Unsurprisingly, the votes in favor of the law came from Baltimore City and the DC suburbs in Montgomery and Prince George’s counties. Normally conservative Senator Norm Stone from District 6 (Dundalk/Essex) voted for equality, as did Republican Senator Allan Kittleman (Ellicott City/Eldersburg). Kittleman was also the only Republican senator to vote for marriage equality for gay couples. The four Democrats to vote against the measure are from historically conservative Anne Arundel County (Astle and DeGrange) and socially conservative districts in southern Maryland (Dyson) and the Eastern Shore (Mathias).
Senate votes – Click to enlarge
House of Delegates
House votes – Click to enlarge.
Who Voted Against Equal Marriage in MD: Senate Edition
This is a continuation of our earlier post, listing all the Maryland Delegates and how they voted on the Civil Marriage Protection Act. Now, we have the list (and map) of the state Senators.
In this map, blue indicates a vote for the marriage equality bill, and red means that Senator voted against it.
Click to enlarge.
Support in the Senate seems much more geographically concentrated than support in the House. The ayes are limited to the Montgomery/Howard/Baltimore City corridor.
Only one Republican broke ranks and voted for the bill: Senator Allan Kittleman of District 9, which covers northern Howard and southern Carroll counties. Democrats who opposed the bill came from traditionally socially-conservative places. Norman Stone represents Dundalk and Essex in eastern Baltimore County. Senators Douglas Peters, Joanne C. Benson, Ulysses Currie, and Anthony Muse are from Prince George’s County. Senators Mike Miller, Thomas Middleton, and Roy Dyson represent southern Maryland. John Astle and Jim “Ed” DeGrange are from Anne Arundel County, and Senator Jim Mathias is from the Eastern Shore.
Precinct Results: State Ballot Questions 4 and 6 – Anne Arundel County
In November 2012, citizens in Maryland voted on several laws passed by the General Assembly. Among them were Question 4, which provides tuition at the in-state level for immigrants who pay Maryland taxes, and Question 6, which allows equal marriage rights for same-sex couples. Here, we have mapped the results by precinct in Anne Arundel County.
Question 4. Click to view full-size version.
Question 6. Click to view full-size version.
The biggest thing that stands out is the stark difference between the Severna Park/Arnold area vs. the Pasadana/Lake Shore area. While both capes vote reliably Republican, Lake Shore is far more socially conservative than Arnold. Nearly every precinct between the Severn and Magothy rivers voted in favor of marriage equality, while there were only three between the Magothy and the Patapsco.
Another noticeable fact from the maps was that Crofton is very similar in this way to Severna Park and Arnold. Every single Crofton precinct voted in favor of question 6, even though the town is a toss-up politically (49% Obama in 2012). In addition, no Crofton precinct voted for question 4 by less than 48%.
Voters in Maryland’s 33rd legislative district and the 5th councilmanic district should take note. For a pretty socially liberal electorate, their elected officials are currently very conservative.
The same cannot be said for Crofton’s more reliably Democratic neighbor, Odenton. Over 57% of Odenton went for Obama in 2012, but it appears to be more socially conservative than Crofton. The Maple Ridge precinct (04-003) voted against question 6, and they were joined by King’s Ransom (04-012) and East Piney Orchard (04-023) in their opposition to question 4.
Other than that, everything was as expected. West county and Annapolis vote liberal, south and northeast county vote conservative. The south continues its leftward trend, due to “spillover” from PG county and trends towards Democrats in Shady Side. However it will be quite some time before the south turns “blue.”
CAA Moves Hoops Tournament to Baltimore
This was exciting to see:
The tournament has been hosted in Richmond, VA since 1990. Not only will this move probably increase the attendance from northern CAA schools, but it will have a positive impact on business in Baltimore, as well as increasing the city’s prestige.
Read the full article by Jack Lambert at the Baltimore Business Journal.
Who Voted Against Equal Marriage in MD?
The Civil Marriage Protection Act was ratified in February 2012, finally legalizing gay marriage in Maryland after a long political battle. The final vote was 72-67 in favor, which begs the question, which delegates voted against this bill? The Democrats have much more than 72 seats in the House of Delegates.
The information is readily available on the Maryland General Assembly site. We have gone one step further (actually, two steps) and created a colored list by party, as well as a map showing where their districts are.
First, the map. This shows where in the state the votes for and against equality came from.
Click to enlarge.
Finally, the list of votes:
From that list, we see members of both parties crossing the line and voting against the majority of their party, mostly socially-conservative Democrats voting against gay marriage. However we also see two Republicans voting for the Act: Bob Costa and Wade Kach.
President Obama’s Economic Record
Perhaps you’ve heard news that the U.S. economy is showing signs of recovery.
Maybe you thought these were just rumors. Possibly, they were lies from the liberal media. It’s hard to know who to trust these days.
But then you see information from many sources, saying things like:
- Consumer confidence is rising (Reuters)
- The unemployment rate is dropping (CBS News)
- The stock exchange is seeing high closes (Wall Street Journal)
- International investors’ confidence is increasing in our economy (Bloomberg Businessweek)
- Our economy continues to see recovery and growth, despite continued troubles in Europe (Washington Post)
That’s when you realize that unless all the major news outlets in the world are part of a giant conspiracy to destroy the U.S. economy, they might just be telling the truth.
But you’re skeptical. And that’s good. It means you are smart enough to not believe everything you hear.
All that graphic does is put all the major economic indicators in one chart.
The numbers you see are from the most recent data as of February 23, 2012.
The rest of this page shows exactly where those numbers came from:
“Obamacare” Proves A Success
The defining moment of Obama’s presidency thus far has been his passage of the Patient Protection and Affordability Act in 2010, also known as “Obamacare” or simply the health care law.
Many groups, funded by special interest groups and pharmaceutical companies, have aired commercials and ads claiming that it is “socialism” and will somehow cause America’s demise.
However, the numbers coming in simply do not support their claim. Click the image below to enlarge:
In addition, Forbes Magazine, a prestigious business publication, reported in January that more small businesses are offering health care to their employees thanks to the new law.
In fact, Forbes columnist Rick Ungar sums everything up very nicely with this closing comment:
If you’re all about beating up on President Obama, you can conveniently forget this bit of data as if it never really happened. However, if your interest is to make health care available to more Americans, this should be a happy day for you – no matter what your ideological beliefs.
-Rick Ungar
More Jobs and Less Crime in 2011
Last year was a great year for progress in Maryland. Nearly 27,000 new jobs were created. Crime dropped to its lowest levels since 1975. And our schools are still ranked first in the nation.
Last week, Governor O’Malley gave a briefing, which showed just how much progress was made.
Click any image to enlarge. Images are directly from the briefing.
Maryland has enjoyed better economic growth compared to Virginia, and it is part of a trend of national economic recovery. The US economy creates about 200,000 new jobs every month, suggesting that President Obama’s policies are beginning to see effect. The national unemployment rate has now dropped to 8.5%, the lowest in almost three years.
Maryland’s recovery rate is actually better than the national average.
According to the FBI uniform crime reports, the total amount of violent crimes has fallen every year since O’Malley was elected in 2006. The crime rate in Baltimore City has also decreased each year.
On top of these statistics, Maryland is also one of eight states to still have a triple-A bond rating from all three rating agencies. And as a result of the new health care law, 300,000 more Marylanders are insured than last year.
We will be working together to make 2012 an even better year than 2011. Thanks for all your support!
Iraq War Is Over
President Obama fulfilled yet another campaign promise by ending the eight-year war in Iraq, pulling the last troops out this month.
Click to watch Obama's video address, thanking our troops for their sacrifice
They don’t see themselves or each other as Democrats first or Republicans first. They see themselves as Americans first.
-Barack Obama
Mankind must put an end to war, or war will put an end to mankind.
-John F. Kennedy
