BERLIN — The Lower Shore’s longstanding commitment to a Republican governor in Maryland dating back several elections was rewarded this week when the Larry Hogan-Boyd Rutherford ticket emerged victorious with a resounding win over Democrat and incumbent Lieutenant Governor Anthony Brown on Tuesday.
Residents in Worcester and Wicomico have traditionally registered as Democrats and voted Republican in terms of statewide offices. For example, just this year, the number of registered Republicans in Worcester outnumbered registered Democrats, but Lower Shore voters have almost always crossed party lines when it comes to choosing its candidate for governor.
In 2010, voters in Worcester and Wicomico resoundingly supported Republican Bob Ehrlich over incumbent Martin O’Malley and the same scenario played out in 2006 when Lower Shore voters supported the incumbent Ehrlich, who ultimately fell to the challenger O’Malley. The trend goes back at least as far as 2002, when voters in Worcester overwhelmingly supported Ehrlich over Democratic rival Kathleen Kennedy Townsend.
The conventional wisdom is the highly populated, Democrat-dominated jurisdictions in the center of the state on the west side of the Chesapeake wash out the votes from Republican outposts on the Eastern Shore and in western Maryland to a large degree and the election results have borne that out for the most part in recent years.
However, on Tuesday, Lower Shore voters in Worcester and Wicomico were part of the groundswell of support for the newly elected Hogan-Rutherford ticket. Statewide, Hogan won with about 52 percent of the vote compared to 47 percent for Brown. On the Lower Shore, the percentage of victory was even more pronounced.
In Worcester, 12,521 votes, or 69 percent, went to Hogan, while Brown collected 5,203, or 29 percent. In Wicomico, 15,959 votes, or 65 percent, went to Hogan, while 8,276, or 34 percent, went to Brown.
However, Brown performed well in many of the big jurisdictions up the middle of the state, which makes Tuesday’s outcome even more remarkable. For example, in Prince George’s County, Brown collected 174,000-plus votes to 30,000 or so for Hogan. In Montgomery, 151,000 voters cast their ballots for Brown compared to 90,000 for Hogan. In Baltimore City, Brown collected roughly 100,000 votes, compared to 29,000 for Hogan. The only other county in the entire state that supported Brown was Charles, which narrowly voted for the Democrat.
In other statewide races, the Lower Shore bucked the statewide trend. For example, in the Comptroller’s race, incumbent Peter Franchot won with 62 percent of the state vote compared to 37 percent for Republican challenger William Campbell. In Wicomico, however, Campbell won 53 percent of the vote and Franchot came in at 44 percent. In Worcester, nearly 57 percent voted for Campbell compared to 44 percent for Franchot. The latter was interesting because Franchot has been a strong supporter for Worcester and Ocean City, particularly with his push to mandate a post-Labor Day school start statewide.
In the Maryland Attorney General’s race, voters statewide supported Democrat Brian Frosh with 55 percent of the vote compared to 41 percent for Republican Jeffrey Pritzker. In Worcester and Wicomico, however, voters supported Pritzker by an average of 61 percent to 35 percent for Frosh.
In terms of voter turnout, there was nothing remarkable about Tuesday statewide or on the shore, despite so much at stake and near perfect weather conditions. Across Maryland, 45 percent of the registered voters got out on Tuesday. In Wicomico, the total was 44 percent, while Worcester County reported a voter turnout of 51 percent.