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[MD-01] Pols Choosing Sides in Maryland GOP Incumbent’s Primary
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Race
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| Contributor | ArmyDem |
| Last Edited | ArmyDem Dec 14, 2007 08:22am |
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| Category | News |
| News Date | Friday, December 14, 2007 02:00:00 PM UTC0:0 |
| Description | CQ TODAY
Dec. 14, 2007 – 12:03 a.m.
By Michael Teitelbaum, CQ Staff
There are less than two months left before Maryland’s earliest-ever Feb. 12 congressional primary, which coincides with the state’s front-loaded presidential contest. And the three major Republican candidates in Maryland’s 1st Congressional District race — nine-term incumbent Wayne T. Gilchrest and his challengers from the state Senate, Andy Harris and E.J. Pipkin — are busy trying to gain any advantages they can.
Harris, who is challenging GOP centrist Gilchrest from the right, convened the press in the state capital of Annapolis Thursday to announce that one of the longshot candidates for the seat, fellow conservative John Leo Walter, decided to drop out of the primary just hours before the 5 p.m. withdrawal deadline and endorse Harris.
Harris will not receive a big bump in pre-primary polls from the move by Walter, a lawyer with a private practice who is not well-known and had not registered much support. But the alliance may help Harris cement his position among ideologically like-minded voters: Walter said he decided to leave the race because he “wanted to unite the conservatives” and is supporting Harris because “as a congressman, Mr. Harris has the ability to do that.”
Harris may also hope to realize some geographic benefit from Walter’s support. While the 1st is most closely identified with the largely rural Eastern Shore region that makes up Maryland’s share of the Delmarva peninsula, the district also takes in two disparate and largely suburban blocks of voters across the Chesapeake Bay, one north and the other south of Baltimore. While Harris resides in the northern block, Walter is from Centreville on the Eastern Shore — a region that also is the home base for Kennedyville resident Gilchrest. |
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