The New General Assembly

The results on the State Board of Elections website are still unofficial but hopefully they are near final. Democratic gains in the General Assembly turned out to be smaller than projected based on election night once the absentee and provisional ballots were counted.

In the Senate, Democrats will hold a 33-14 margin over the Republicans. This division is exactly the same as after the 2002 general election. However, I suppose Democrats can claim a one-seat pickup as they reclaimed the seat of Sen. John Gianetti (District 21-Prince George's), who switched parties after he lost the Democratic primary to Sen.-Elect Jim Rosapepe.

Democrats and Republicans traded two other seats. In District 13 (Howard), Democrat James Robey defeated incumbent Republican Sen. Sandra Schrader. In District 31 (Anne Arundel), Democrat Walter Shandrowsky narrowly lost a battle for an open seat to Republican Bryan Simonaire. The seat had previously been held by conservative Democrat Phil Jimeno.

Democrats will have a 104-37 margin over the Republicans in the House of Delegates. Democrats netted six seats more in 2006 than in 2002, reflecting a gain of seven new seats and a lost of one seat. Democratic Del. Joan Cadden (District 31-Anne Arundel) lost her seat by 28 votes to incumbent Republican Del. Don Dwyer. Unusually for an incumbent, Dwyer trailed both of the non-incumbent Republican candidates for delegate.

Democrats picked up seats in seven districts. In District 3 (Frederick), Democrat Sue Hecht beat incumbent Del. Patrick Hogan. In District 8 (Baltimore), incumbent Republican Del. John Cluster lost his seat to Democrat Todd Schuler. Democrat Craig Rice defeated incumbent Republican Del. Jean Cryor by just 152 votes in District 15 (Montgomery).

In contrast, incumbent Republican Del. William Daniel Mayer trailed Democrat Peter Murphy by 5,212 votes in District 28 (Charles). Republican Del. Terry Gilleland lost his seat to Democrat Pamela Beidle in District 32 (Anne Arundel). Interestingly, Del.-Elect Beidle, the only new delegate topped the ticket and Gilleland fell to fifth place behind another Republican.

Incumbent GOP Del. Sheryl Davis Kohl similarly not only lost her seat but fell to fourth place behind the other Republican candidate in District 34A (Harford and Cecil). Democrat B. Daniel Riley will take her place in the House. Republicans held all three seats in District 42 (Baltimore) prior to the election but Democrat Stephen Lafferty won the single open seat in the district.

Democrats now hold 70% of the seats in the Senate and 74% of the seats in the House. Republicans had hoped to win at least one-third of the seats in one chamber so they would have the power to sustain the veto of a Republican governor. In 2006, they not only failed to make any progress toward that goal, they lost some of their relatively small number of seats to the Democrats. As Martin O'Malley will replace Bob Ehrlich as governor, Republican legislators don't even have the high-class problem of worrying about sustaining his vetoes.