Even with marquee endorsements from Gov. Martin O’Malley and Sen. Barbara Mikulski, political analysts say Hillary Clinton will need a great ground game and lots of grunt work to take a majority of Maryland’s delegates.
About 30 percent of Maryland voters are black. And suburbanites,who are key supporters for Barack Obama in other states, comprise more than 45 percent of registered voters.
“Obama comes with the expectation that he’ll do well here, because he does well in suburban, affluent and heavily African-American areas,” University of Maryland political science professor Shawn Parry-Giles said. “He has the perfect ingredients for a victory here.”
Clinton, however, could turn the tide if she turns out her base, which experts say is union members, senior voters and women. So strong is her support with some unions that the American Federation of County, State and Municipal Employees’ union office in Baltimore is known her “unofficial headquarters.”
“The flip side of Obama’s upper-income appeal is Sen. Clinton appeals to pro-choice women who feel strongly about women’s issues,” American University government professor David Lublin said. “And to win, she has to get them.”
Clinton will benefit from massive phone-banking efforts run by the National Organization of Women that NOW leaders say will reach about 30,000 current and former members in both Virginia and Maryland over the course of the next week.
While O’Malley and Mikulski are the biggest name endorsements in the Maryland race, some experts say the winning Democratic candidate will need a host of lesser-known local elected leaders who can be counted on to turn out their supporters on Election Day.
“The people at the bottom who can get out the vote are the ones with control in this primary,” Lublin said. “O’Malley is busy running this state and even though Barbara Mikulski is very well-liked here, I am not sure I would bank on her having a personal machine at the ready that can get out the vote on Sen. Clinton’s behalf.”
Both candidates’ campaigns are boasting they have that “grassroots support” already at work. State Comptroller Peter Franchot and Prince George’s County State’s Attorney Glenn Ivey will be working the rush-hour crowds thismorning at the Addison Road and New Carrollton Metro stations for Obama.
To rally support for Clinton, Montgomery Council Member Nancy Floreen has been “waving signs and talking to voters” at Wheaton and Grovesnor stations; her colleague Montgomery Council Member Duchy Trachtenberg will be making phone calls.
