{"id":7918,"date":"2017-05-08T07:00:47","date_gmt":"2017-05-08T11:00:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/?p=7918"},"modified":"2017-05-08T15:34:19","modified_gmt":"2017-05-08T19:34:19","slug":"could-anyone-stop-david-trone-in-cd6","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/?p=7918","title":{"rendered":"Could Anyone Stop David Trone in CD6?"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Adam Pagnucco.<\/em><\/p>\n

The future plans of Congressman John Delaney remain unclear<\/a>, but that has not stopped some potential candidates from expressing interest in his seat<\/a>.\u00a0 Two have filed paperwork to start raising money \u2013 Delegates Bill Frick<\/a> (D-16) and Aruna Miller<\/a> (D-15).\u00a0 It\u2019s time to examine what a potential open seat race in Congressional District 6 might look like.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s begin by asking the obvious question: could anyone stop David Trone?<\/p>\n

Trone, a co-owner of Total Wine and second-place finisher in the 2016 CD8 Democratic primary, is known to be looking at races for both Montgomery County Executive and CD6.\u00a0 Trone shares certain characteristics with Delaney: both are successful, center-left businessmen who live in Potomac and have been active political contributors at the national level before running for office.\u00a0 Delaney\u2019s 25-point victory<\/a> in 2012 over establishment favorite Senator Rob Garagiola (D-15) is no doubt encouraging to Trone because it provides a model for his own potential candidacy.\u00a0 So far, five Montgomery County state legislators \u2013 Frick, Miller, Delegates Kirill Reznik (D-19) and Andrew Platt (D-17) and Senator Roger Manno (D-19) \u2013 have told the Sun<\/a> that they would consider running in CD6.\u00a0 There may be others as well as several Republicans.\u00a0 But let\u2019s start with the MoCo Five.\u00a0 How do they compare to Trone?<\/p>\n

Money<\/strong><\/p>\n

This is the elephant in the room.\u00a0 Trone set a record<\/a> for a self-funding candidate for Congress last year.\u00a0 Here is how his potential MoCo rivals stack up to him in lifetime campaign receipts.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Money doesn\u2019t make Trone invincible.\u00a0 Senator Jamie Raskin (D-20) raised $2 million in the CD8 primary<\/a>, was outspent by Trone by more than 6-1 and still defeated him by 7 points<\/a>.\u00a0 But money is a big advantage for Trone and none of these MoCo legislators has proven\u00a0that they can raise anywhere near as much money as Raskin.<\/p>\n

Geography<\/strong><\/p>\n

Unlike Trone, the five MoCo legislators represent legislative districts and presumably have relationships with their constituents.\u00a0 Here is the number of Democratic voters in the portions of their districts that overlapped with CD6 during the last mid-term primary, which occurred in 2014.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

None of these legislators represents a dominant share of CD6\u2019s Democratic electorate.\u00a0 Two of them \u2013 Miller (20%) and Reznik (16%) \u2013 represent a larger share of CD6 than Raskin did of CD8 (14%).\u00a0 But Raskin\u2019s in-district supporters were intensely invested in him and he was able to reach into other districts through many surrogates.\u00a0 These legislators would have to do something similar in order to acquire an advantage over the others.<\/p>\n

Now, what of the 43% of CD6 Democratic voters who do not live in any of these districts?\u00a0 Aside from the handful who reside in four precincts in Legislative District 14, they live in the district\u2019s four Western Maryland counties.\u00a0 In the CD8 primary, Trone won absolute majorities of the vote in both Carroll and Frederick Counties<\/a>.\u00a0 Trone also won pluralities in Damascus, Gaithersburg, Glenmont\/Norbeck, Potomac and Rockville<\/a>.\u00a0 The implication is clear: if each of these legislators gets in and holds most of their home territory, Trone could still win by running up big margins in Western Maryland and picking up pockets of votes in UpCounty MoCo.\u00a0 Let\u2019s remember that MANY of these residents were exposed to Trone\u2019s millions of dollars in broadcast TV commercials<\/a> last year.<\/p>\n

Electoral Experience<\/strong><\/p>\n

Most of Trone\u2019s potential rivals have not won an intense, hard-fought election like last year\u2019s race in CD8.\u00a0 Frick and Reznik were originally appointed to their seats.\u00a0 Miller was inducted onto the District 15 incumbents\u2019 slate<\/a> in 2010 prior to winning an open Delegate seat.\u00a0 The exception is Manno, who withstood some of the most depraved<\/a> political<\/a> attacks<\/a> in recent<\/a> MoCo history<\/a> when he took out incumbent Senator Mike Lenett (D-19).\u00a0 But CD6 is much larger than D19 and the potential reach of Manno\u2019s prodigious door knocking \u2013 his favorite campaign tactic \u2013 is in question.<\/p>\n

And then there is Trone himself.\u00a0 After three months of all-out campaigning, Trone eclipsed a field of initially better-known candidates to finish on the brink of victory.\u00a0 Our interview<\/a> with Trone last year is instructive.\u00a0 As a self-made man, Trone has a swagger that is off-putting to some who meet him.\u00a0 But he has also endured significant tragedy and failure in his life that was key to his later triumphs.\u00a0 Trone has an almost preternatural ability to reflect, learn and adapt.\u00a0 His cover picture on Twitter<\/a> even advises visitors to \u201cTry Things\u2026 Get Comfortable with Failure.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The thought of a wiser, more experienced and more strategic Trone should inspire dread in potential opponents.<\/p>\n

And yet, Trone can be beaten.\u00a0 Let\u2019s look at the man who did it.\u00a0 Jamie Raskin started out as one of MoCo\u2019s best-ever challengers<\/a> when he defeated twenty-year incumbent District 20 Senator Ida Ruben.\u00a0 He spent the next ten years building progressive networks at both the national and local levels.\u00a0 The former helped him raise millions of dollars; the latter gave him a grass-roots army that has been seldom seen in this county.\u00a0 No prospective CD6 candidate checks all those boxes.<\/p>\n

It will take two things to stop Trone if he runs for an open seat in CD6.\u00a0 First, most of the MoCo legislators mentioned in the Sun would have to not run, thereby giving the remaining candidates room for electoral growth.\u00a0 And second, one of Trone\u2019s rivals would have to run the race of his or her life, far exceeding previous performances.<\/p>\n

Raskin proved that it can be done.\u00a0 But can it be done again?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Adam Pagnucco. The future plans of Congressman John Delaney remain unclear, but that has not stopped some potential candidates from expressing interest in his seat.\u00a0 Two have filed paperwork to start raising money \u2013 Delegates Bill Frick (D-16) and Aruna Miller (D-15).\u00a0 It\u2019s time to examine what a potential open seat race in Congressional … Continue reading Could Anyone Stop David Trone in CD6?<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[151,303,272,85,2],"tags":[1545,612,1598,441,1928,1778,1509,1454],"class_list":["post-7918","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-adam-pagnucco","category-aruna-miller","category-bill-frick","category-kirill-reznik","category-roger-manno","tag-adam-pagnucco","tag-andrew-platt","tag-aruna-miller","tag-bill-frick-2","tag-cd6","tag-david-trone","tag-kirill-reznik","tag-roger-manno"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4mKJE-23I","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7918","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7918"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7918\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7927,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7918\/revisions\/7927"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7918"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7918"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7918"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}