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Running for the District 4 County Council seat for the second time in a year gave Democratic candidate Nancy Navarro an advantage over her opponents in the April 21 special primary, political analysts say.

Navarro, a Board of Education member from Silver Spring, won the Democratic primary for the District 4 County Council seat by a narrow margin of 62 votes over her main opponent, Del. Ben Kramer (D-Dist. 19) of Derwood.

Almost 11,000 votes were cast in the primary which featured six Democrats and three Republicans. The Green Party candidate, George Gluck of Rockville, was endorsed by his party and not required to participate in the primary.

Navarro's victory remained in limbo until Friday while more than 800 provisional and absentee ballots were counted.

Political analysts said Navarro had better name recognition than Kramer because Navarro campaigned in 2008 against former County Councilmember Don Praisner in a primary to fill the seat left vacant by the death of Praisner's wife, Marilyn J. Praisner. Navarro lost that race by about 350 votes.

And although Kramer carries the name of his father, former County Executive Sidney Kramer, the district he represents in Annapolis overlaps only about half of District 4.

"She had more of a running start than we did," said Eric Hensal, the campaign manager for both Kramer's and Don Praisner's campaign.

David Moon, Navarro's campaign manager, said campaigning last year gave them "a road map" for precincts to target this year.

"We knew where we would run strong and where we knew we wouldn't run strong," Moon said.

Where they didn't run strong in 2008 and where Moon said they tried to make up ground this year was in the northern and western parts of the district, or what Moon calls the "Praisner coalition."

District 4 includes all or parts of Aspen Hill, Burtonsville, Calverton, Cloverly, Colesville, Derwood, Fairland, Olney, Sandy Spring, Silver Spring, Spencerville, Wheaton and White Oak.

To win precincts Praisner won last year, Moon said the Navarro campaign worked on reaching people who don't normally vote by driving minority and young voters to polls and creating proxy campaign leaders among different ethnic communities.

As a result, Moon said, Navarro had a fairly secure lead over Kramer in early vote results.

Kramer, on the other hand, made up ground in the Kemp Mill area of Silver Spring and the Leisure World retirement community in Aspen Hill — both Praisner strongholds last year and traditionally the precincts with the highest voter turnout.

"The only reason this race was close was because of Leisure World," Moon said.

But Hensal argued that the race tilted in favor of Navarro because voter turnout was off at several precincts in Burtonsville where Praisner won last year.

This year, about 8 percent of eligible voters marked ballots at White Oak Middle School handing over the precinct to Navarro by 52 percent to Kramer's 41 percent.

Hensal said if turnout had reached last year's 11 percent, Kramer would have probably taken the precinct.

"An election like this is so small, it's like quantum physics," Hensal said. "You're worried about, like, five people in a neighborhood."

Political analysts say the primary this year was especially heated, with several negative mailings sent out by the Navarro campaign.

Moon confirmed that his campaign sent out mailers attacking Kramer on his votes in Annapolis on gun legislation and child pornography prosecution.

While those mailers did nothing to help Navarro, they hurt Kramer some, said Stanton Gildenhorn, former chairman of Montgomery County Democratic Party and an active county Democrat.

Moon defended the mailers as "issue-based," but Hensal said he believes the negative mailers helped suppress voters in some areas.

"If an election feels negative, they're less likely to turn out," he said.

Another unusual mark in the campaign was that Kramer was endorsed by both major newspapers covering the election, The Gazette and The Washington Post, and still lost, Gildenhorn said.

"It is a rarity for anyone to win an elected office without the editorial backing of The Gazette," he said.

Almost all political analysts agree that Navarro will most likely win the general election against Republican challenger and real estate attorney Robin Ficker and Green Party candidate George Gluck. What role she will play on the County Council as the ninth voter remains to be seen, analysts said.

Stuart Rochester, a Burtonsville resident and community activist, summed up the feeling of many political analysts by saying there's no question Navarro will slant the council to the left.

The District 4 seat has been seen as a swing vote on the nine-member County Council. While previous District 4 councilmembers were unpredictable voters, Navarro is strongly associated with labor and social issues, Rochester said.

"Now we can pretty much predict a 5/4 split in favor of the social agenda and more spending," he said.

But Moon called much of that "hype," saying Navarro will come into the council trying to bridge voting gaps instead of widening them.

"She's not pro or anti anything. She's going to be voting how she thinks and what would be in best interest of Montgomery County," he said.

To view the precinct-by-precinct totals, visit www.montgomery

countymd.gov/elections.