Democrats Sweep Md. Statewide Races

Democrats swept Maryland's four statewide seats in Tuesday's general election, according to unofficial tallies provided by the Maryland State Board of Elections.

Democrat Martin O'Malley, Baltimore's mayor, led Republican Gov. Robert Ehrlich Jr., 53.2 percent to 45.6 percent, unofficial election results showed late Wednesday. The tallies did not yet include provisional and absentee ballots.

Democratic Rep. Benjamin Cardin declared victory late Tuesday night in his U.S. Senate contest against Republican Lt. Gov. Michael Steele, for the seat being vacated by Democratic Sen. Paul Sarbanes.

Unofficial tallies from the state showed Cardin with 54.7 percent of the vote to Steele's 43.7 percent, with Green Party contender Kevin Zeese trailing far behind with 1.5 percent of the vote.

Democrats also beat Republican opponents for attorney general and state comptroller. Democrat Doug Gansler, Montgomery County state's attorney, beat Republican Scott Rolle, Frederick County state's attorney, 61.6 percent to 38.3 percent, according to unofficial tallies.

And Democratic state State Del. Peter Franchot beat Anne McCarthy for comptroller, 59.6 percent to 40.2 percent, unofficial tallies showed. McCarthy was one of the few women candidates to appear in the top races, along with lieutenant governor candidate Kristen Cox, who ran on the Republican ticket.

Meanwhile, all of the incumbents in Maryland's congressional races who sought re-election retained their seats.

In the open 3rd District congressional seat, being vacated by Cardin, lawyer John Sarbanes, a Democrat and son of retiring U.S. Sen. Sarbanes, beat Republican John White.

Absentee ballots could prove crucial in extremely tight contests. Three times the normal number of absentee ballots were requested for this midterm election, following problems with electronic voting during the primaries, said Ross Goldstein, deputy administrator for the Maryland State Board of Elections.

By election day, 193,486 Marylanders had applied for absentee ballots, according to the state's numbers. Of those, 95,476 applicants were registered as Democrats and 78,666 were registered as Republicans, Goldstein said. All had to be postmarked by Nov. 6 to be counted; about three-quarters of the absentee ballots had been returned by Nov. 8, Goldstein said.

One extremely close contest in Maryland is the race for Anne Arundel county executive. Only 334 votes separate Republican John R. Leopold and George F. Johnson, according to officials.

--By Melissa Pachikara, with edits by Chris Harvey

Welcome to our notebook!

Where you'll find anecodotes from the Maryland campaign trail, reported by advanced students in the print, TV and Web news bureaus run by the University of Maryland Philip Merrill College of Journalism. We're keeping the blog as a closed discussion within our group, but posting it here so that anyone can read it. Our aim is to give readers a behind-the-scenes look at the goings-on in some of the top-of-the-ticket races in Maryland, and perhaps a few of the others. We won't be reporting rumor; only fact, factual analysis and first-hand observations. But we hope to write in a breezier style than you might see in some of our stories on Capital News Service and Maryland Newsline, and perhaps provide a few thoughtful insights that you won't find elsewhere. Enjoy!