Maryland voters don’t matter in a national election
By Barry Rascovar
For MarylandReporter.com
So Maryland’s votes don’t really matter in tomorrow’s tumultuous climax to an unpredictable, deeply divisive political campaign for president.
We already know the outcome in heavily Democratic Maryland. The record-breaking flood of Democrats during early voting is a clear sign it could be another wipeout for Republicans running statewide.
The two GOP candidates, Donald Trump (for president) and Kathy Szeliga (for U.S. Senate) need a miracle-and-a-half to win in the Free State this year.
It ain’t gonna happen.
Maryland’s 10 electoral votes are safe for Democrat Hillary Clinton. There’s been no turn of events strong enough to dissuade state Democrats from supporting their party’s presidential nominee.
It’s one of 18 states, plus the District of Columbia that have gone Democratic in each of the past five presidential races.
That would place Clinton at 240 electoral votes – 30 shy of what she needs for victory. A combination of wins in battleground states like Florida, North Carolina, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Colorado and Nevada could do the trick.
Getting to 270 electoral votes
Clinton also holds out hope in Arizona. A local race for county sheriff involving the controversial anti-immigration incumbent Joe Arpaio could prompt a heavy Hispanic turnout that might put Clinton over the top.
In Georgia, only a record turnout in the Atlanta suburbs could bring Clinton victory. Those areas are home to college-educated professionals and middle-income African Americans – two voting segments overwhelmingly for Clinton this year.
Trump’s road to the White House is far more difficult. He’s got to break through in one of those “Solid 18” Democratic strongholds, such as Pennsylvania or Wisconsin. Polls so far haven’t shown that is likely to happen.
Trump also needs to fend off Clinton in the toss-up states and pretty much sweep the board.
It’s a tall order, but not impossible.
His base of support remains white, non-college-educated males (and some females) who have suffered from the Great Recession and feel government has ignored their plight while it accommodates immigrant and minority groups.
Can Trump turn out his voters?
Trump has lit a fire under these “mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore” voters. But will they come out and vote in overwhelming numbers? Are there enough of this “silent majority” to overcome the growing voting strength of minority groups throughout the country?
Trump’s greatest weakness is in the suburbs surrounding big cities, home to college-educated professionals. For decades, these communities have been solidly Republican in presidential races. Not this time, though.
Donald Trump has turned off women in these households with his coarse language, racism, sexist remarks and disdain for females in general. It could cost him the election.
Szeliga, meanwhile, always faced an uphill battle of long odds running against U.S. Rep. Chris Van Hollen of Montgomery County, a popular politician for several decades who has unified the Democratic Party behind him and has made no mistakes in this campaign.
Once Trump’s balloon deflated in Maryland with the state’s leading Republican, Gov. Larry Hogan, Jr., walking away from him, Szeliga’s chances faded dramatically. Her only hope was a sweeping victory by Trump in Maryland behind a unified GOP. She needed to catch a rising Trump tide. She also needed Van Hollen to alienate part of his party’s faithful, which never happened.
Yet despite the lack of drama in Maryland’s vote-counting tomorrow night, it’s still anyone guess who will occupy the White House.
Polling confusion
Polls have been terribly misleading and contradictory. Highly suspect polling methodology by some organizations has compounded the inaccuracy. So has the sudden glut of polls released by colleges we’ve never even heard of before.
Tuesday you can throw all those supposed accurate polls away. None of them can predict with any degree of accuracy the human factor when it comes to casting a presidential ballot. That’s especially true when it comes to that other unpredictable factor – turnout.
So buckle your seatbelts and get ready to stay turned late into the night on Tuesday. It’s even possible we won’t know the outcome till the votes are counted in Alaska, where the polls close at 1 a.m. our time.
Barry Rascovar’s blog is www.politicalmaryland.com. He can be reached at brascovar@hotmail.com
MarylandReporter.com is a daily news website produced by journalists committed to making state government as open, transparent, accountable and responsive as possible – in deed, not just in promise. We believe the people who pay for this government are entitled to have their money spent in an efficient and effective way, and that they are entitled to keep as much of their hard-earned dollars as they possibly can.