Maryland "Potomac Primary" Early Recap

>After so much build up, it is somewhat anticlimactic to report that Maryland went the way it was expected it would: Sen. Barack Obama beat Sen. Hillary Clinton in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination; and Sen. John McCain bested former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee in the Republican nomination race. This mirrors our neighbors across the river and in DC too (though in DC, Obama’s margin was more dramatic).

Final results are not in yet; these are media projections based on exit polling. Here is the raw exit poll data.

And, here is a great interactive tool from the Washington Post where you can see the actual election returns breakdown of each Maryland county in the presidential primary races. It will get updated as the evening progresses (and through tomorrow). Here is the main ABC News results page for the Maryland presidential primary elections.

President was not the only race on the ballot. In the contest for at-large Montgomery County School Board member, a field of five was vying for the nod. Here is the results page for this race from the Washington Post. (Updated through the night.)

Meanwhile, in congressional District 8 (the one that covers Our Fair City), incumbent Chris Van Hollen was seeking the Democratic re-nomination over Deborah Vollmer and Lih Young. On the Republican side, a field of five was battling for the chance to run against the Democratic nominee in November. And Brian Crider, running for Congress in district 8 under the Green banner, was unopposed in the nomination contest. So he wins. Here is the Washington Post’s results page for District 8. (Updated through the night.)

It was a day that started out a bit overcast and very, very chilly — and basically remained that way until afternoon rush hour, when rain fell to the cold ground, instantly freezing and creating slick conditions. Gridlock prevailed in the evening rush, and election officials kept the county’s polling places open late to accommodate the conditions.

Late in the day, I tracked down a report that Montgomery County Public Schools, because students had the day off, had not turned on the heat in schools all day (it’s a centralized system, not controlled on a per-building basis). A quick trip out to Maryvale Elementary established that it had been very cold throughout the day but was starting to warm up.

I checked College Gardens, too, and found the heat very much in evidence, but the sidewalks as slick as oil. I also found some very cheerful election judges, pictured at right.

Because I was acting as a stringer for Pajamas Media’s coverage of the day, I asked Rockville Central readers to feed me tidbits throughout the day of how things were going. Here is a sampling:

• 10:30am — “Voting was light around 9:30 at College Gardens ES. I just stopped by there to visit their great Bake Sale supporting the PTA. Also a chance to see the new building! Voting was busier at Carver when I went at 10am to vote, but I only had to wait a few minutes to get registered and in a booth.”

• 11:09am — “Long lines, people comparing it to flu shot lines. ‘I’ve never stood so far back [in line] is the buzz.’”

• 1:11pm — “While standing in line behind about thirty people in my Rockville, MD voting location, I noticed an elderly couple carefully making their way toward the end of the line. She used a walker and he rolled an oxygen tank behind him. I was really impressed than on this sub-freezing morning, they took their place in line and waited patiently to vote. My fellow voters and I offered to let them get in line in front of us, but they said they were fine. After overhearing the man mention that he thought ‘he had enough oxygen left,’ I found an election staffer to guide them to a place to sit until it was their turn to cast their ballots. I’m pretty sure they couple thought we were making too much of a fuss, but all I could think of is the effort it must have taken them to get out of the house and over to the polling place. When I’m their age, I hope I’ll have the same determination to get out and vote.”
  
• 3:22pm — “It was extremely cold this morning, and it appeared to be a fairly light turnout. No political signs of any kind were in the ground outside, and I (as the Democratic Precinct Chair) was the only one working out in front of the polling station. And I couldn’t stay out there for more than an hour or so at a time.”

• 4:00pm — “Lone Oak was not heavy, but steady. The poll officials said it had been that way all day.”
  

Stay tuned for definitive results when they are available (likely Wednesday, February 13).

Everyone who braved the
cold, the rain, the ice, or all three: Congratulations. Thank you for joining in our collective experiment — the longest-running effort at self-governance on the planet.

(Photos by Rockville Central.)

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