Baltimore Mayor Martin O?Malley said Wednesday that he was able to knock off Republican Gov. Robert Ehrlich with a little help fromEhrlich?s home base: Baltimore County.
“It was roughly around 50-50,” O?Malley said of Ehrlich?s home county, which the Arbutus native needed to carry heavily to remain governor. “We knew it would be a battleground for us.”
Indeed, Ehrlich and O?Malley were nearly dead even in Baltimore County, with Ehrlich recording less than 500 more votes than O?Malley and both candidates receiving about 49 percent of the total.
In 2002, Ehrlich dominated his native county with 61 percent of the vote, compared to Democrat Kathleen Kennedy Townsend?s 38 percent.
Thanks in part to the strong showing in Baltimore County, O?Malley won the state handily with 53 percent of the vote compared to Ehrlich?s 46 percent.
Despite several recent public polls that showed a tight race between the two men, O?Malley said he was not surprised by his 6 percent margin of victory.
“We are grateful at the spread,” he said at a news conference at City Hall Wednesday in which O?Malley officially ended his campaign.
Ehrlich called O?Malley on Wednesday morning at home to offer his concession.
In the Baltimore Metropolitan area, O?Malley won Baltimore City with 76 percent of the vote and Howard County with 50 percent of the vote, compared with Ehrlich?s 48 percent. Carroll County went to Ehrlich with 69 percent, as did Harford County with 62 percent and Anne Arundel County with 56 percent.
O?Malley said he planned to take a “pragmocrat” approach to governing Maryland, taking good ideas from wherever he could find them.
He pledged to focus on education, including funding school construction and providing initiatives to make college more affordable. O?Malley said he would not make any Cabinet announcements until he has rested from the campaign.
Ehrlich was dogged by voter angst about President Bush and the war in Iraq. O?Malley acknowledged that the national Republican troubles, including the Bush administration?s handling of Hurricane Katrina and the war, hurt the incumbent governor.
“The country has figured out that making our government as small and as weak as possible is not good,” he said.
O?Malley said he will most remember the hopeful looks in the eyes of his supporters during the campaign.
“It is a very, very humbling experience,” he said.
The governor-elect acknowledged that he was fatigued after a long and contentious campaign, and that he missed spending time with his wife and their children.
Nevertheless, O?Malley pledged an ambitious plan for his next 65 days: “Sleep.”
Part of the Baltimore Examiner’s 2006 election coverage
