More News

A former state Republican Party chairman says Scott Brown's Senate victory in Massachusetts isn't just a sign that former Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. should enter Maryland's gubernatorial race, "it's a billboard."

Brown's win over Democrat Martha Coakley for the seat once held by the late Democratic Sen. Edward M. Kennedy also should help energize people to support Republican candidates who oppose the Democrats on issues such as the economy and health care reform, said John Kane, who headed the state GOP from 2002 to 2006.

But others, such as Ron Walters, a political science professor at the University of Maryland, College Park, say Maryland has a much different political landscape from Massachusetts and too much shouldn't be made of Brown's victory.

"The message is different for Maryland," he said. "They have a far larger independent voting bloc in Massachusetts. The Democratic voters tend to have more punch in Maryland."

In Massachusetts, 51 percent of registered voters are nonaffiliated, compared with 14 percent in Maryland; while Democratic voters make up 57 percent of the registered voters in Maryland, compared with 37 percent in Massachusetts.

However, the Brown win "might embolden Ehrlich to get into the race," Walters said. "There is some indication in this race that Republican messaging is working at the state level."

Former Ehrlich administration official Lawrence J. Hogan Jr., who plans to run as a Republican candidate for governor if Ehrlich does not enter the race, believes that. He says the Massachusetts result sends a message that should resonate in Annapolis.

"Maryland is not immune to the winds of change that blew through Massachusetts," he said. "Like in Massachusetts, it's not about Republicans vs. Democrats, it's about our future. I think that Marylanders are completely fed up with a one-party monopoly and with politics as usual in Annapolis."

For his part, Ehrlich sees the same differences in voter demographics between the two states that Walters points out, said Ehrlich spokesman Henry P. Fawell.

"I caution reading too much into that," Fawell said of Brown's win. "The voter demographics are very different in Massachusetts than in Maryland."

Ehrlich still has not decided whether he'll run again, Fawell said.

The Brown win also isn't a sign that Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D) of Baltimore is vulnerable to a Republican challenger, because she is a much better candidate than Coakley proved to be in Massachusetts, Fawell said.

"She is not Coakley," Fawell said. "She is a very well regarded, very popular elected official in Maryland."

U.S. Rep. Christopher Van Hollen (D-Dist. 8) said Coakley lost because of voter unease over the economy, state-specific issues and her failure as a candidate. Coakley made 19 campaign appearances, while Brown made more than 60.

House Environmental Matters Chairwoman Maggie L. McIntosh, who heads the coordinated campaign of the Maryland Democratic Party, said Coakley should have won the election, but Massachusetts is not as heavily Democratic as many news accounts have made it seem.

"For 16 of the last 22 years, it's had a Republican governor," McIntosh said.

While Brown's win might energize some in the Republican base in Maryland, the reality is the state GOP has $14,000 in its coffers, compared with nearly $1 million in the state Democratic Party's campaign chest, McIntosh said.

And the Brown win could have even less impact on local and district elections, said Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller Jr.

Even though Republican Robert F. McDonnell won the Virginia governor's race in November, Democrat David W. Marsden won a special election for a state Senate seat vacated when Kenneth T. Cuccinelli (R) was elected attorney general.

"The anger at the national economy — people lash out, collectively, statewide — for the most part doesn't materialize on local elected officials when you have smaller election districts," said Miller (D-Dist. 27) of Chesapeake Beach.

"If you know your district, you're connected to your district, you're not going to make the mistakes that Martha Coakley made in Massachusetts," he said.

Coakley thought she was "ordained" for the seat, which was identified as the Kennedy seat, Miller said.

"Brown and his handlers wisely said this is the people's seat. It belongs to the people of Massachusetts, not the Kennedy family or the heir apparent to the Kennedys," he said.

House Speaker Michael E. Busch (D-Dist. 30) of Annapolis agreed.

"Elections can turn very rapidly in this day and age. Would it have been nice to win in Massachusetts if you were a Democrat? Sure," he said. "But it also shows you about people who take things for granted.

"It requires you to go out and work to get elected. I think there is this overall dissatisfaction with elected officials right now, and I don't know that they're happy with people in either party, quite candidly."

Staff writers Douglas Tallman and Sean R. Sedam contributed to this report.