The Generation Gap

The canyon that is the generation gap among Democratic primary voters continues in Maryland:

17-29 year olds (12%): 72% Sanders, 26% Clinton
30-44 year olds (24%): 55% Clinton, 44% Sanders
45-64 year olds (42%): 74% Clinton, 24% Sanders
65 and older (23%): 74% Clinton, 21% Sanders

Sanders devotees will point to his incredibly strong numbers among millennials, though they are lower than the stunning 85% and 90% that he managed to post elsewhere.

But there just aren’t that many of them. Millennials composed just 12% of the Democratic primary electorate. Older voters participate far more. People 45 and older formed 65% of Democratic primary. Clinton advocates will argue that this undercuts Sanders’s argument that he brings in tons of young voters.

Oh, and Hillary just won Pennsylvania.

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Surprises in the Presidential Exit Polls

Inspiration

For all of the talk of Sanders being the heart candidate and Clinton the head candidate, 53% of Marylanders said that Clinton “is more inspiring about the country’s future.” She also won 96% of the people who thought her more inspiring but Sanders won only 78% of those who picked him.

Party ID on Democratic Side

Sanders has usually swept independents by a huge amount. In Maryland, Democratic primary voters who view themselves as independent voted only 54-39 for Sanders. In contrast, Clinton won the 81% of Democratic primary voters who saw themselves as Democrats by 67-32.

Party ID on Republican Side

Trump too usually does better among independents. Not in Maryland. Trump won 55% of Republican primary voters who identify as Republicans compared to just 44% of those who see themselves as independents.

White Evangelicals

Among the 36% of Republican primary voters who are white evangelical or born-again Christians, Trump won with 52% compared to just 24% for supposed evangelical heart throb Ted Cruz. Even Kasich managed 22% of white evangelicals. Trump did only one point better among other Republican voters. Stick a fork in Cruz, he’s done?

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Clinton Strong Across Maryland

According to the exit polls:

East (21%): 65% Clinton, 32% Sanders
Baltimore Area (28%): 66% Clinton, 31% Sanders
DC Suburbs (35%): 66% Clinton, 33% Sanders
Central/West (15%): 53% Clinton, 45% Sanders

If these margins hold, Clinton should win most congressional district outside of the Sixth (i.e. Western Maryland) by roughly 2-1 and pick up a good number of delegates. Where the races are at all close, which can even include places where one candidate has a 10 point lead, candidates often come out with the same, or nearly the same, number of delegates.

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Exit Poll Results

Early exit polls suggest the Maryland results will be:

Hillary, 64%
Bernie, 33%

Men are only 40% of the Democratic vote. Hillary won the white vote with 56% and the black vote with 76%. Blacks are the largest share of the electorate at 46%. Good news for Donna Edwards?

On the Republican side:

Trump, 62%
Kasich, 24%
Cruz, 21%

Men compose 52% of Republican voters. Huge gender gap with 59% of men voting Trump compared to 46% of women. Will Gov. Hogan endorse him?

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Absentee Ballots Spike in CD8

A guest blog by Adam Pagnucco.

Jonathan Shurberg kindly passed along a tip that absentee ballots are waaay up in CD8.  He’s right, and that could have an impact on our congressional primary.

The state’s Board of Elections has released absentee ballot statistics by congressional district and party.  CD8 has about one-eighth of the state’s population.  But among Democrats, it has accounted for 27% of absentee ballots sent to voters and 25% of absentee ballots received by the state.

Absentees by CD

The Board of Elections also reports absentee ballots by state legislative district.  Among Democrats, the five legislative districts from which the state received the most absentee ballots are all partially or entirely inside CD8.  Legislative District 16, home to high turnout precincts in Bethesda and Chevy Chase, is the runaway leader.  Legislative District 20, home base to Senator Jamie Raskin, ranked fifth.

Absentees by LD

Below are absentee ballots cast by Democrats in CD8 primaries from 2000 through 2016.  The lead year for absentee voting was 2008, a record-breaking primary across the state which saw a contested election for President.  This year’s primary is set to be at least number two on this measure.  A caveat applies: CD8’s boundaries were significantly changed in 2012, as it lost many high turnout precincts in Potomac and gained many less-Democratic precincts in Frederick and Carroll Counties.  Accounting for that fact, the absentee returns in 2008 and 2016 are in the same ballpark.  Another thing: mailed absentee ballots with postmarks on or before election day will be accepted by the state through May 6, so more ballots will be received.

Absentees CD8 Dems Historic

The competitive presidential primary between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders is definitely responsible for part of this spike.  Competitive presidential elections draw out voters like no other down-ballot offices do.

But we also hear that David Trone’s campaign has been running an aggressive absentee ballot program.  This is part of Trone’s strategy to expand the electorate beyond regular Democratic voters.  By mailing to registered Democrats who do not get mail from other candidates, saturating televisions, laptops, tablets and smartphones with ads and even advertising on Baltimore TV stations, Trone is betting that he can turn out voters who hear primarily or only from him.  That’s his strategy for victory, and the absentee ballot performance may be a sign of it.

If Trone is deadlocked for the lead with another candidate at the end of tonight, don’t be surprised if the absentee ballots give him a win.

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The State of Play Before Primary Night II: CD8

The Democratic primary in the Eighth Congressional District is fierce. And no wonder. Whoever wins is virtually assured of becoming a new Member of Congress in this safely Democratic territory.

Adam Pagnucco has done a good job outlining the strength and weakness of the three leading candidates (Matthews, Raskin and Trone), so I thought I’d look at how the other candidates may impact the race even if they don’t win.

Del. Ana Sol Gutierrez has run a somewhat quixotic campaign that has mainly been about advancing her progressive point of view in debates. Her campaign lacks to money to be competitive even though she has loaned it money from personal funds.

Despite the lack of funds, I heard from one voter that saw a television ad. Unfortunately for Gutierrez, advertisements have to play a lot in order to have an impact and her budget is simply not large enough to buy that hefty an ad buy.

She has sent out one bilingual piece of mail in the form of a newspaper. Voters may pick it up and take a peek because it’s original. But it has a lot of small print and many photos of the candidate in the style of the North Korean Central News Agency‘s coverage of Kim Jong Un.

Despite these limits, Gutierrez may have an impact. She had volunteers at the Lawton Center early voting center in Chevy Chase. Moreover, she has been in public office for 25 years as a candidate for the School Board and then the House of Delegates.

Gutierrez’s final political move has been to endorse Bernie Sanders. This seems more likely to do her more good than Bernie, as she links her campaign to a popular progressive and appeared on stage to endorse him at a rally in Baltimore.

As the first Latina elected in Montgomery County and a known  name, I expect Gutierrez to pick up a good chunk of the Latino vote. Indeed, it seems likely to propel her into fourth place even if she loses much of her past non-Latino support to Jamie Raskin.

Raskin seems most likely to be hurt by Gutierrez’s presence in the race. He represents a large Latino community in District 20 and has advocated strongly on a variety of issues from immigration to social justice that Gutierrez also emphasizes. It would certainly be ironic if Gutierrez, who ran to advance progressive issues, ended up costing the leading progressive candidate the nomination.

Del. Kumar Barve is a former majority leader of the House of Delegates who represents Rockville and Gaithersberg. Smart and quick, he’s one of the funniest members of the House of Delegates. Like the other state legislators in the race, he has ended up heavily on the liberal side of most issues.

Barve has more money than any candidate outside of the top three but remains out of their financial league. He has attempted to gain notice through strong criticisms of Raskin’s ads but my assessment is that these efforts have gained very limited traction.

At the risk of making Barve sound far older than he is, Barve was the first Asian American elected in Montgomery County and, indeed, is often highlighted in descriptions of pioneering elected officials. This would seemingly be an advantage in a county with a large and growing Asian American population.

Unfortunately for Barve, most Asian Americans identify less as Asians and more by their national origin. As Barve likes to note somewhat ruefully, he has the Hindu vote nailed down with the implication being that just won’t get him far.

Barve is one of those candidates who I could well have imagined breaking through but it hasn’t happened for him for a variety of reasons, including Trone’s money attracting so much attention. It would be nice for Barve if he finished well in the portions of the district he represents in the House of Delegates.

Will Jawando ran a good but losing campaign for the House of Delegates in District 20, home to Jamie Raskin. Two years later, he has jumped into the congressional race. Jawando is young attorney with a family who is also running on progressive platform and is easy to imagine winning public office in Montgomery County.

Jawando’s decision to enter this race surprised many. The safer bet would have been to help Raskin win election and then angle to win appointment to the state legislative vacancy. Jawando would have been a very strong candidate due to his own abilities, respectable finish last time, and links to the congressional winner.

While Rep. Elijah Cummings has stayed out of the U.S. Senate race, he has endorsed Jawando for the Eighth District. As the only African American in the race with support from a prominent African-American Democrat, albeit not from around the area, Jawando has the potential to attract some votes.

As with Gutierrez, this could hurt Raskin. However, Jawando is less well-known that the long-established Del. Gutierrez, so it’s unclear how big a splash he will manage to make in the race.

Joel Rubin is a friend and neighbor. He’s a nice, personable guy who, like many in Montgomery County, has been active in federal politics but at the local or state level until now. Rubin has raised a nice sum of money and run a good campaign even though he just lacks the funds or previous support base to be competitive.

Even though this is his first race, he’s shown some good clever, campaign abilities, including producing these excellent YouTube videos on Trone and and his own family story:

Like Will Jawando, I would not be surprised to hear more from Joel Rubin in the future.

Finally, I know little about Dan Bolling and David Anderson. Bolling is running as the anti-partisan candidate and Anderson appears to be a well-meaning progressive. I do not expect either to have a major impact on the outcome of the race. Click on the links to learn more about them.

 

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Updated: Broadcast TV Spending in CD8

The following is a guest post by Adam Pagnucco.

We are now at the end of a record-breaking, historic and extremely expensive Democratic primary for Congress in District 8.  The leading category of spending in the race is television advertising.  Broadcast TV contracts for political ads are available on the Federal Communications Commission’s website, but they are not readily searchable or crunchable.  We tracked and broke down candidate spending on 127 contracts through noon, April 4 three weeks ago.  The updated data below pertains to 218 contracts uploaded as of Saturday afternoon, April 23, and should cover almost all broadcast TV spending in the primary.

First, let’s look at the number of spots and gross spending for each broadcaster.  This data does not include production costs for the ads, only payments to broadcasters to run them.

Broadcast TV Spending by Network

WRC-TV, the Washington NBC affiliate, has been the leading network here for years and accounts for roughly a third of spots and more than 40% of gross spending.  Its news programs, including the Today Show, the local news shows and NBC Nightly News, are among the most desirable – and most expensive – programs for political advertisers.  Three Baltimore broadcasters appear in our dataset because Total Wine co-owner David Trone is advertising on them to reach Carroll County voters.

Television spending has increased steadily since January 26, when Trone kicked off the CD8 2016 ad season.  Former WJLA anchor Kathleen Matthews began advertising on February 8.  Senator Jamie Raskin joined in on March 24 and Delegate Kumar Barve followed on April 6.  April has been a lucrative month for Washington broadcasters, especially WRC.

Broadcast TV Spending by Month

David Trone is the king of TV spending, accounting for the majority of spots and 75% of gross payments.  Trone heavily targets national and local news programs for his ads, considered by many to be solid places to reach voters.  Barve prefers these programs too.  Matthews keeps her costs down by mixing in cheaper daytime television like The Meredith Viera Show, Days of Our Lives, Who Wants to be a Millionaire, CBS Soaps and The Insider.  Raskin runs 15-second spots, half the length of his competitors, and that’s why he has the lowest cost per spot.

Candidate and Cost per Spot

Trone has been on TV the longest and has spent the most money by far, but the entrance of other candidates has cut into his dominance a bit.  Still, even in April when all spigots were opened, Trone had a 68% market share.  Trone spent almost as much on April broadcast TV as Matthews has spent on all items in her entire campaign, and more than Raskin has spent in total.

Candidate and Month

Despite his unprecedented TV spending, Trone’s campaign is not the most TV-intensive as a proportion of total funds.  That distinction belongs to Matthews.  Her broadcast TV spending accounts for 48% of the money she raised through April 6.  Trone’s TV spending accounts for 43% of his resources (including two late contributions through April 15).  Barve and Raskin trail on this measure.  Matthews is able to put more of her money into TV, an area in which she excels, because Emily’s List has basically taken over her mail program.  This is a significant advantage for Matthews.  Aside from the authority line, voters likely cannot distinguish between Emily’s List mailers and anything they have seen from the Matthews campaign.

Percent Spent on Broadcast TV

If spending alone determines the outcome of the race, Trone is going to win.  However, about sixty percent of the electorate is female and that will help Matthews.  And Raskin’s grass-roots support has been second to none.  We are headed towards an exciting finish!

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