Maryland Election Results Analysis

We begin with Maryland where voters have certainly made their choice and bring in Brian Sears with Maryland Matters. Brian, thank you for joining us. Thanks for having me. So, first impression, any shockers for you last night? You know, I think that there were there were a couple of races down ballot for Republicans that were difficult. We saw two House of Delegate races that were Republican go Democrat. And the other one that was kind of a surprise was on the Eastern Shore. Julie Giordano, a Republican county executive, lost to her Democratic challenger. That that was kind of a that was kind of a surprise last night. And also keeping a close eye on the governor's race and in question three, especially. I know there was a lot of confusion surrounding that going into the election. Yeah, I think you're talking about voters who may have had trouble understanding exactly what the question in question three meant. It was. Originally designed that way by the legislature and then rewritten by the courts, and it looked very different from questions one and questions two, which very specifically explained to the voter what it meant if you voted a particular way. This lacked that specificity, and there was a lot of discussion about whether or not voters would actually know what they were voting on. We still have two years to go, but with governor-elect, and will remain governor, Wes Moore in Maryland, a lot of people are now talking about potential presidential prospects. How do you see that potentially playing out moving forward? Well, to be clear, the governor last night won a four-year term, but everybody is going to be watching him over the next two years, starting in January when he's sworn in. And look, I think there's a lot of speculation about his future, and he certainly teased it last night during his speech. There were a number of people in the crowd when he would get very close to talking about the future who were yelling for him to run for president or saying, hey, he's going to run for president. President. And so I certainly think that, you know, there's the speculation there. He is counted among the Democrats across the country who are considered early, early interested parties in running for president. And, you know, he gets it. He spends a lot of time outside of Maryland courting national courting national voters. And I and I think probably there's a likelihood that he's going to dip his toe in the water. I think we're all expecting that. One thing we talked about and have been at length here on Fox 5, not just in Frederick County, but elsewhere in the region, data centers. That's been a major conversation. When it comes to the race in Frederick County, the county executive, how do you think that conversation and debate played into the outcome? Look, we wrote a story at Maryland Matters a week before the election. The county executive there, Jessica Fitzwater, definitely was concerned about it. There was a strong sentiment in Frederick. There has historically been a strong anti-growth sentiment that seemed to be... Playing into also an anti-data center sentiment, we do know that there was, despite the fact that she was out-raising her opponent 32 to 1, she ended up needing some help from an independent expenditure group, which came in and dropped about a half a million dollars into that race. It really was a race that I don't think we would have been talking about otherwise without the data center issue. Ultimately, she was able to win her race. Redistricting also part of that question three and the conversation leading up to yesterday. I want to focus now on Andy Harris's district and how that turned out in light of it. Yeah, I mean, so Andy Harris won, you know, won another term in Congress and won it. I mean, the last I looked, it was about 11 points. That's a pretty handy win, especially in a year when we, you know, we clearly saw a blue tsunami nationally. It was one of the closer races that, you know, re-election races that he's had to run. And so, you know, I think for the first two, you know, for this two-year term, you know, the He's managed to secure his, you know, secure his next two years. The question becomes whether or not the General Assembly and the governor will turn around now that question three has been approved by voters and come back in January or sometime next year and redraw that district. And I think that remains an open question. Normally we do say blue wave or blue sweep. You just said blue tsunami. Many stations are covering that way. And a lot of the experts that we spoke with yesterday, you know, last night and didn't. into today, did not expect the lead and the results to be this dominant on the Democrat side. Did you predict it nationally turning out this way? Oh, look, I think I think there was no way to predict it. I mean, there were a lot of the. Part of the uncertainty really centered around the polls, and as you know and your viewers probably know, there have been years where the polls have not been great, and there's still a lot of uncertainty around exactly what the polls meant, and could these numbers possibly be as big as what some of the data was suggesting. I was initially sort of hesitant about it, but it became very clear pretty early on of what was about to happen. But I don't know that anybody could have predicted what happened last night. Finally here, what do you see for Maryland moving forward in terms of issues being key for voters and legislation being passed? Well, look, I mean, we're heading into a general assembly session where clearly we're going to have to deal with some very sizable budgets, budget deficits that next year it's a $3 billion structural budget gap followed by similar budget gaps in the following three years. I think there's going to be a lot of discussion centering around budget cuts, but also the real possibility of tax increases and possibly the legislature and the governor doing something that centers around the sales tax, whether that's an increase or an extension. extension to what the sales tax applies or perhaps even both. Well, Brian, thank you so much for that look back and look ahead and for all of your reporting that you've done over the past weeks and months leading up to last night for Maryland Matters. We do appreciate your expertise.