District 34: My home district. While Harford county Democrats are concentrated in the corridor stretching from Edgewood to Havre de Grace, the presence of Bel Air and Abingdon make this a safe seat for Cassilly. Aberdeen is modestly Democratic but hardly "solidly Dem." Trump did well there, and Hogan won all the major precincts in Aberdeen four years ago as well as in Havre de Grace. Former Del. Mary-Dulaney James is a stale name at this point. Solid R.
My district as well. Democratic presence in Havre de Grace is vastly overstated and where it does exist, turnout is generally dismal even in strong years. Edgewood and Aberdeen are the only genuine Democratic areas of Harford county. Lisanti, as such, is going to have a tough time hanging on to her seat.
34 is likely GOP. James' best hope is that Republican voters will stay home thinking the election has already been won -- Harford county Republicans don't tend to operate like that.
Hard to predict what the statewide margin will be between Hogan and Jealous but this much is certain: outside of Montgomery, Prince George's and Baltimore City (where there are zero competitive legislative races anyway) Hogan will utterly destroy Jealous... Maryland republicans are energized, love Hogan and most importantly, they GET. OUT. AND. VOTE.
That is far from certain. Hogan will likely win but he has few accomplishments to point to beyond rolling back things done by previous administrations. There is a strong conservative case to be made that Hogan has not done enough. Hogan is lucky that there was no conservative insurgency this year. The fact that so much of the Maryland political discourse
still revolves around the O'Malley administration indicates more excitement about lower tolls and vague opposition to "liberalism" than the actual Hogan governorship. The excitement surrounding Hogan is essentially just excitement that O'Malley isn't governor anymore.
This is less an election about policy and more about personal branding; Hogan has effectively just cast himself as "not a liberal." I don't see that as being enough for Maryland republicans to get truly
energized -- enough to win, sure, but even if he wins by strong margins around the state, many of those votes are reluctant. "He's alright," "he hasn't really damaged anything," "why not," "sure..."
