GOP Has Uphill Battle in New Gerrymandered 8th District
Kathleen Smero, Glen Geelhaar and Tim Neubauer are trying to retain a GOP seats and pick up two Democratic seats in District 8.
The northeast Baltimore County district has been gerrymandered for Democrats.
There were four 8th District voting precincts where Republican Christian Miele defeated Kathy Klausmeier by a combined 800 votes. Those precincts are out of the district.
Four new precincts (2 from District 42, 1 from District 6 and 1 from District 7) were added. In 2018, the Democratic Senatorial candidates in these new precincts combined for 1,200 more votes than the Republican candidates.
That would have gave the Democrats a net gain of 2,000 votes in 2018 with this new map.
It shows too as Klausmeier and her Democratic primary opponent combined for 10,432 votes. More Democrats vote in this district.
SENATE
Ken Fitch is the GOP nominee. He received 3,598 votes in the primary. The Democrats nearly tripled that total but the race is still listed as “Slight Democrat”. This is still far from the toss-up race in 2018. Fitch does have one advantage over Miele in 2022. He should benefit from a red wave.
HOUSE OF DELEGATES
District 8 currently has two Democrats (Harry Bhandari and Carl Jackson) to one Republican, Joe Boteler.
He was gerrymandered out of the district and lost in the new District 7A primary.
Boteler’s seat is now open and Bhandari and Jackson are out of 50/50 and are in the “Slight Democrat” column.
Republicans Kathi Smero, Glen Geelhaar or Tim Neubauer are trying to keep Boteler’s seat and perhaps take Bhandari and/or Jackson’s seats.
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