Why is everybody writing off MD-1? Includes data overkill!

[minionofmidas]

As you might remember, in Maryland's first district, which includes the entire Eastern Shore, bits of Harford and Baltimore Counties, and an entirely disconnected bit of Anne Arundel, the old rhino Wayne Gilchrest got shot down by Andy Harris in a very negative campaign - largely by revving up big margins in the gerrymandered western bits of the district while (thanks to a third candidate, E.J. Pipkin) the Eastern Shore vote was split. The Democratic candidate, Frank Kratovil, is from Queen Anne's County.
I'll freely admit that George Bush got 62% of the vote here.

Primary results:
Total
Rep 77,414 votes cast; Harris 43.4, Gilchrest 33.1, Pipkin 20.3 (two alsorans)
Dem 71,115 votes cast; Kratovil 40.2, Robinson 30.8, Harper 16.7, Werner 12.3
Obviously, the high no. of Dem primary votes is all due to the fact that there was a presidential primary on the same day n all that. Still, worth pointing out that the Dem-Rep split is the most equal in Maryland, and that Kratovil actually got 3000 votes more than Gilchrest.

Anne Arundel (part)
Rep 13,902 votes cast; Harris 47.9, Gilchrest 30.1, Pipkin 18.2
Dem 11,286 votes cast; Kratovil 46.1 etc (too lazy to calculate opponents' shares except Robinson's where he won)
Baltimore (part)
Rep 7020 votes cast; Harris 65.4, Pipkin 16.2, Gilchrest 15.8
Dem 6820 votes cast; Kratovil 42.4
Harford (part)
Rep 13,692 votes cast; Harris 59.0, Pipkin 19.3, Gilchrest 18.6
Dem 10,598 votes cast; Robinson 29.1, Kratovil 27.4

Harris' lesser strength in the AA portion is due to the fact that Gilchrest has represented that area since 1990, but the northern areas only since 2002; as well as to the fact that Harris' State Senate district is around there.

Eastern Shore, summed
Rep 42,800 votes cast; Gilchrest 41.5, Harris 33.4, Pipkin 21.9
Dem 42,411 votes cast; Kratovil 41.4

Eastern Shore counties, north to south:
Cecil
Rep 6734 votes cast; Gilchrest 32.8, Harris 31.3, Pipkin 30.5
Dem 6415 votes cast; Robinson 32.9, Kratovil 30.2
Kent
Rep 2231 votes cast; Gilchrest 60.9, Harris 22.2, Pipkin 15.2
Dem 2530 votes cast; Kratovil 54.0
Queen Annes
Rep 6039 votes cast; Pipkin 34.8, Harris 31.4, Gilchrest 31.1
Dem 5141 votes cast; Kratovil 77.0
Can you say "local boy"? That's half his districtwide margin of victory right there.
Also, did I mention that Gilchrest lives in Kent County and Pipkin lives in Queen Annes as well?
Talbot
Rep 5537 votes cast; Gilchrest 52.7, Harris 31.3, Pipkin 13.7
Dem 4254 votes cast; Kratovil 51.7
Caroline
Rep 2887 votes cast; Gilchrest 37.2, Harris 36.6, Pipkin 23.3
Dem 2579 votes cast; Kratovil 46.3
Dorchester
Rep 3026 votes cast; Gilchrest 43.5, Harris 32.6, Pipkin 20.8
Dem 3881 votes cast; Robinson 54.9, Kratovil 25.8
And Robinson, as you can tell, was from here.
Somerset
Rep 1714 votes cast; Gilchrest 43.6, Harris 35.0, Pipkin 18.5
Dem 2495 votes cast; Kratovil 38.2
Wicomico
Rep 8830 votes cast; Gilchrest 41.2, Harris 39.9, Pipkin 16.0
Dem 9301 votes cast; Robinson 37.4, Kratovil 31.7
Worcester
Rep 5802 votes cast; Gilchrest 45.5, Harris 32.7, Pipkin 19.0
Dem 5815 votes cast; Robinson 37.0, Kratovil 34.4

[JohnnyLongtorso]

Primary results to not correlate to a general election.

Also, as a former resident of the Eastern Shore, I can attest to the fact that the place is extremely conservative. It's not going to elect a Democrat above the level of the House of Delegates. Democrats and Republicans have about even registration in the district, but a lot of those Democrats are Dixiecrats.

[minionofmidas]

Primary results to not correlate to a general election.

Also, as a former resident of the Eastern Shore, I can attest to the fact that the place is extremely conservative. It's not going to elect a Democrat above the level of the House of Delegates. Democrats and Republicans have about even registration in the district, but a lot of those Democrats are Dixiecrats.

Not sure about the district (couldn't find data for the Harford, AA, Baltimore portions) but in the Eastern Shore, Dems still have a semi-sizeable registration advantage (which means, of course, that Rep turnout in the primary was higher than Dem turnout. Which given that the Dem presidency was still up in the air says rather a lot.)

As of February 2007 the Eastern Shore had...
112,255 Dems (44.7%)
99,696 Reps (39.7%)
251,103 registered voters total

The only counties where Reps are ahead in registration are Talbot and Queen Annes. In Kent and Dorchester, Democratic registration is over 50%.
Maryland's primaries are closed, and it is actually impossible to change your party for approximately three months before the primary (but it is still possible to newly register to vote during that time.)

Gilchrest was, apparently, the single most moderate Republican in the House in 2007 - taking all the year's roll calls where a majority of Dems voted one way and a majority of Reps the other way, he was the Rep to vote with Dems most of the time. Pipkin was certainly painted by the Harris campaign as just another Rino, although that was not what Pipkin himself ran as.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

The Eastern Shore had a Democrat rep from 1980 until 1990 (well '81 and '91... sillyness of the time between winning and taking office...) who won his first election because the Republican incumbent was destroyed by a sex scandal. Gilchrist nearly beat him in '88 and beat him in '90.

[minionofmidas]

Basically all I'm saying is, if anyone has a "watchlist" category between "safe Rep" and "leans Rep" or whatever, this seat belongs on it. At least for now. If Gilchrest ends up actively supporting Harris (which is rather unlikely, though. Perhaps actually less likely than him endorsing the Democrat - unsubstantiated rumours of that happening are flying around) I'd obviously retract that.

[Mr.Phips]

If this election was being held in the pre-2001 MD-01, Kratovil would have a very strong chance to win this seat and he might have even been the favorite.  The problem is that the Democratic legislature redrew this district to take out the Democratic leaning capital of Annapolis to help secure MD-03 and ended up adding a heavily Conservative stretch of territory in Eastern Anne Arundel county to make sure MD-03 and MD-05 still had a good Democratic lean to them.  This, in effect, made this district about four points more Republican than it had been before 2001. 

[nclib]

Does anyone have the Kerry/Bush numbers in any of those counties? I wonder if Gilchrest did better in the more Democratic-leaning areas.

[Adlai Stevenson]

Does anyone have the Kerry/Bush numbers in any of those counties? I wonder if Gilchrest did better in the more Democratic-leaning areas.

https://uselectionatlas.org/RESULTS/