Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley won re-election Tuesday in his rematch against his predecessor, Republican Bob Ehrlich.
The Democrat, who had more than 60 percent of the vote late Tuesday night, widened his victory margin from four years ago, when he won roughly 53 percent of votes to Ehrlich’s 46 percent.
O’Malley held a strong lead in Baltimore and the Washington suburbs — as expected — and even edged ahead in Ehrlich’s home base, Baltimore County. Ehrlich, who experts said needed to win at least 40 percent of Montgomery County’s vote, only landed roughly 32 percent in Montgomery by late Tuesday.
“You did this. … We have got to keep pushing Maryland forward, and that’s what you have chosen to do,” O’Malley told supporters at his victory party in Baltimore.
The governor ran an aggressive advertising campaign, rolling out his first TV ad in July — roughly two months before Ehrlich’s first television appearance. The governor centered his campaign on a single slogan he weaved into every stump speech: “moving Maryland forward,” which he used to paint Ehrlich as the incumbent.
Ehrlich accused O’Malley’s administration of stifling small businesses, driving away corporate headquarters and relying too much on federal money. He railed against O’Malley’s plans to spend more than $1 billion on the high-speed Purple Line rail connecting New Carrollton and Bethesda.
O’Malley chided Ehrlich’s promise to repeal 2007’s 20 percent sales tax increase, saying the former governor had no plans to pay for the cut. The governor touted his record education funding and the 33,000 new jobs created in Maryland since January.
The candidates also sparred over immigration laws, national health care legislation and pension reform.
In the last several weeks, O’Malley used his huge cash advantage to double down his TV presence in Baltimore and the expensive, voter-rich suburbs of Washington where the governor is most popular.
O’Malley also capitalized on Obama’s popularity in Maryland, which remains high in a state where Democrats outnumber Republicans 2-to-1. The president headlined a rally for O’Malley in early October at Maryland’s oldest historically black college. Two weeks later, former President Clinton stumped for the governor in Baltimore.
Democrats struck a nearly clean sweep elsewhere in the state, with six of the state’s seven Democratic members of Congress winning re-election. Sen. Barbara Mikulski easily won re-election over her Republican opponent, Eric Wargotz. The Maryland congressional delegation’s lone Republican, Roscoe Bartlett, also handily won re-election.
