Harris draws first challenger

There won’t be a Kratovil-Harris round 3, but the First District race won’t be a walkover, either.

Instead, a Baltimore County business owner and “arts advocate” has entered the race for the First District seat Andy Harris won in 2010. It appears Wendy Rosen’s main planks will be a “Buy American” push and a claim to “GOP values.”

But Wendy is having a tough go of it so far. While it’s a young campaign, the fact that she has only 44 likes on her campaign’s Facebook page and, more telling, a total of $550 donated so far (on a $100,000 goal) may suggest that her struggle will be quite the uphill battle.

Obviously there’s not a lot to go on since Wendy is in the Congressional arena for the first time. And while her business ownership would be an asset insofar as appealing to moderate voters goes, she can’t lay claim to the “Eastern Shore values” mantle Frank Kratovil rode to success in 2008 – in fact, she may not survive a primary challenge if a politician well-known on this side of the Bay jumps into the race. There has been the rumor floating around that Jim Mathias may take a shot at it because it’s the middle of the state’s four-year cycle; of course that hasn’t been uttered as much lately because the new First District lines make the district lean quite a bit more Republican.

It would appear that Wendy’s best chance would be to have no primary opponents so she can concentrate on the November, 2012 race. But that’s probably not going to happen as the last 10 election cycles have only seen two races where a Democratic nominee was unopposed from the First District: 2010, where Kratovil was the incumbent, and 2002. Including those two races, an average of 3.4 aspirants have sought the Democratic nod.

And the other wild card is having new territory added to the district, as it now stretches farther westward than in previous years. Unfortunately for Democrats, that new area is pretty solidly Republican – yet it’s possible a Democratic candidate could emerge from those new areas.

Obviously I’ll keep an eye on developments in this race – and anything can happen over the next 11 months – but for the time being it appears Andy Harris doesn’t have a lot to worry about.

Author: Michael

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