- The race is close!
There’s already a lot of interest on the Shore in the rematch between Frank Kratovil (incumbent) and Andy Harris (challenger) to represent Maryland’s first district in Congress. But since the election is not until November and there are few reliable polls to let us know who’s ahead, we tend to look at the competing candidates fundraising success to give us some idea who is winning.
And the fundraising is close. Through March 31st of this year Kratovil has raised $1,329,763 and has $1,034,031 on hand. Harris is not that far behind having raised $979,296 and has $703,939 on hand.
With the advantage of incumbency, Frank Kratovil has raised a lot of his money from Political Action Committees (PACs) – a bit more than $732 thousand. Harris has raised more (about $770 thousand) in individual contributions, but a large portion of his contributions come from out of state.
But there’s a lot more information. Let’s start by looking at how much has been contributed by individuals here on the Shore. For purposes of this analysis, I’ve divided the Eastern Shore into the Lower Shore (zip codes beginning with 218), Mid Shore (zip codes beginning with 216) and the Upper Shore (zip codes beginning with 219 – basically Cecil County).
| Kratovil | Harris | |
| Lower Shore | $15,325 | $15,008 |
| Mid Shore | $116,282 | $58,543 |
| Upper Shore | $950 | $1,000 |
On the wealthy Mid Shore (Easton, St. Michaels, etc., including Kratovil’s home county, Queen Anne’s) Frank Kratovil has done well raising $116,282 from 231 contributions. Harris, by contrast, has raised only $58,543 from 117 contributions – about half by both measures.
On the usually parsimonious Lower Shore, the race is closer. Kratovil has raised $15,325 from 43 contributions while Harris has received $15,008 from 41 contributions. Up in Cecil, Kratovil has received $950 from four contributions, while Harris has gotten a single contributions of $1,000.
What does all this tell us? Well, Kratovil won the very close race in 2008 by virtue of his ability to win votes on the Eastern Shore. This data might indicate that he has an advantage here again. Now that campaigning and fundraising have begun in earnest, it will be clearer when we see the June results. In the meantime, I’ll look at contributions from the Western Shore counties in the next post.