OCEAN CITY — Tuesday’s primary results wielded mediocre voter turnout and few surprises in the Old Line State as Republican frontrunner Donald Trump and Democrat Hillary Clinton scored big wins.
Trump, fresh off appearances on the Eastern Shore and Delaware, crushed Ted Cruz and John Kasich taking 55% of the vote in Maryland and 73% of the vote in Worcester County, while Clinton scored a decisive victory over Bernie Sanders in the state by 30 percentage points.
Locally, polling places were slow to fill on Tuesday morning as local voters shaded their paper ballots with general ease in Worcester County.
After record numbers of Marylanders turned out for early voting in the state, the long lines of voters seen at polling places across the country were almost non-existent around the area for most of the day.
“It’s been very, very slow this morning,” said a ballot official at a Berlin polling place who wished not to be named. “Hopefully, it picks up as the day goes on.
Three times the number of early voters cast votes in Maryland this cycle compared to 2012 when Barack Obama ran unopposed for re-elction and Mitt Romney had all but sewn up the Republican nomination for President.
Nearly 8 percent of Maryland voters, or almost 260,000 cast early votes in the eight days leading up to Tuesday’s primary, with slightly more Democrats than Republicans heading to the polls prior to today, according to the State Board of Elections. Voter turnout rates for the primary were unable as of Thursday.
Despite the fact that a new president will be elected in November and there has been an incredible circus-like hullabaloo surrounding the contenders, local voters seemed to be much more concerned with the results of the elections that trended much more local.
“I think you have to definitely look closely at the race for Congress and for our local school board,” said Berlin resident Patricia Dufendach. “That’s where our tax dollars end up going and we need to keep the schools in good standing. The national politics is important, but I am much more concerned with our local community and our state.”
In regards to the Worcester County School Board elections, incumbent Sara Thompson and Francis Gephardt earned enough votes to be on the ballot in November. The results were Thompson, 772 votes, 40%; Gebhart, 633, 33%; and Shirley Moran, 514, 27%. The top two vote-getters in the primary advance to the general election in the non-partisan race.
Yet, some independent voters were left on the outside looking in on Tuesday, such as Paul Dufendach, the husband of the aforementioned Patricia.
“I call it illegal elections,” he said. The election is held in our local schools and is being run with government equipment so it should be open to all voters, not just people who are signed up as a Democrat or a Republican.”
Independent voters have not been able to participate in primary votes for many years, but according to the Board of Elections, the number of Independent voters in the state has increased by almost 57 percent in the last decade totaling approximately 672,000, leaving more people on the voting sidelines in the primary than perhaps ever before.
Other races throughout the state drew the interest from local folks on the shore including the battle to win the right to contest for the retiring US Senator Barbara Mikulski’s seat.
Democrats Rep. Chris Van Hollen and Rep. Donna Edwards had been neck and neck in a contentious battle for the Democratic nod for the seat Mikulski has held for the past 30 years but on Tuesday night, Van Hollen defeated Edwards by a significant margin, taking 53% of the vote and earns the nod to face off against Kathy Szeliga, who beat out a large pool of Republican candidates all vying for a seat that is largely expected to stay “blue” in the general election in November.
Patricia Dufendach believes whomever wins Mikulski’s seat needs to be just as mindful of the needs of the Eastern Shore as Senator Barb historically was.
“With Barbara Mikulski’s help, we got a lot of attention on issues that faced the Eastern Shore,” she said. I’m hopeful that anyone who is in that seat, we have to remind them as citizens what we need and what their responsibilities are. If we just sit back and complain, it does no good. We have to be activist citizens.”
As every election has the proverbial thrill of victory, it also provides an element of the agony of defeat and perhaps no race sums up that sort of frustration more than Democrat Jim Ireton, who came close, but ultimately short, in his bid to win the Democratic nod to take on Republican incumbent Andy Harris for the state’s first Congressional district seat.
Ireton took 48% of the vote statewide, yet lost to Harford County attorney Joe Werner, while Congressman Andy Harris strolled to a massive win in his primary earning more than 78% of the vote.