It’s Election Day! Kids and public employees: Enjoy your day off. Everyone else: remember to vote when your boss lets you.
There’s no Senate race in Maryland, all of the state’s House races seem like done deals and most of Baltimore City’s delegate hopefuls faced their toughest competition in the primaries. But since the next governor of will be chosen, it’s an important election in the Land of Pleasant Living. While we’re waiting for the votes to come in, there’s plenty of time for handicapping the horse race as it comes down to the wire.
Fortunately for those of us who don’t enjoy hearing about where the candidates ate lunch, there’s now a cottage industry of people who predict election results. That’s because of stat wunderkind Nate Silver, who predicted the 2012 presidential election. Silver parlayed his fame to his own venture, fivethirtyeight.com, and they’re crunching numbers on elections across the country.
Based on their modeling of polls released Monday, Silver’s team gives Democrat Anthony Brown a 94 percent chance of beating Republican Larry Hogan to assume the state’s top job.
That’s probably how it seems like results should shake out in a state that’s as heavily Democratic as Maryland, for a well-funded candidate who has had current and former presidents (and their wives) stump for him.
But those same polls have provided some reasons for Brown’s camp to worry. And, on Election Day, not all wonks are following Sliver’s lead. The Cook Political Report called the race a toss-up last week. Meanwhile, Larry Sabato’s Crystal Ball sees the race leaning Democratic, but had the race as solidly in Brown’s corner over the summer. Real Clear Politics also went Toss-Up in the final days.
With all of the anticipation building, Gov. Martin O’Malley, who will turn the keys over to the winner of tonight’s race, isn’t looking at those silly numbers.
“My gut tells me it’s likely 2 or 3,” O’Malley told the Washington Post, when asked how many percentage points he thought Brown should win by. “Sometimes your gut becomes informed by being through these a few times.”
Stomachs will continue to churn until the results come in after polls close at 9 p.m.
