Maryland 2012

[mencken]

Why did Cardin barely do better than in 2006 and why did Sobhani get such a high vote total?

Looking at it on a county by county basis, it seems like Sobhani's votes came almost entirely from Steele 2006 voters, which leads me to believe Bongino may have just been too right-wing for moderate Maryland Republicans. This partly answers the first half of my question (as I would expect the most elastic voters in an inelastic state like Maryland to fit this profile), but still leaves room to be desired as to why these voters chose a self-funding independent over a generic incumbent Democrat and why said generic incumbent Democrat could not crack 60% in a state like Maryland?

[SATW]

Cardin's main base are white suburbanites and Jewish voters. Maybe he doesn't do as well with the African-American wing of the MD Dems?

[Kingpoleon]

And not since 1974, when Matthias beat Mikulski 57-43, has anyone in Van Hollen's seat got as low a percentage as Van Hollen did.

[mencken]

Cardin's main base are white suburbanites and Jewish voters. Maybe he doesn't do as well with the African-American wing of the MD Dems?

This seems to be substantiated by his (relatively) weak performance in Prince George's County both times he ran.