Clagett and Young Only Democrats to Win in Frederick County

George Wenschhof

Democrats across the country suffered defeats as Republicans had a net gain of over 60 seats in the House as they won a solid majority.

Maryland, a solid blue state lost one of those seats; the first district, where one term Democrat Frank Kratovil lost to Republican Andrew Harris. Incumbent Democratic Governor Martin O'Malley and all other seven incumbent congressmen won.

However, the huge win by Democrat Ron Young over three term incumbent and ineffective state senator Alex Mooney (district 3) was overshadowed by the crushing defeat Democrats suffered in Frederick County, Maryland.

His friend and fellow Democrat, Galen Clagett was the other of the only two Democrats to win. Clagett won another term as he led the voting among the candidates for two state delegate seats in district 3-a.

They were the only two Democrats to win out of the twenty local positions on the ballot.

Ron Young won by less than 2%, as I had predicted, 50.86% to 48.97% for Alex Mooney. When the small portion of Washington county is added, Young received 21,361 votes to 20,706 for Mooney, a 665 vote difference. Absentee and provisional ballots still need to be counted. However, this lead by Young will be hard to make up by Mooney when those ballots are counted.

The county commissioner race saw all five seats won by Republicans with Blaine Young (Ron Young's son) receiving the most votes and in line to be the next president of the board. The only "no-growth" candidate to win was incumbent Republican David Gray.

Voters joined me in voting against ineffective Kai Hagen, who came in sixth, 6,000 votes behind Republican Kirby Delauter, who won the last spot on the five member board. The other two Republicans winning seats on the board were Paul Smith and Billy Shreve.

Hagen had also recruited candidates who supported his anti-Incinerator stance with hopes a new board would be able to reverse a previous decision to build an Incinerator to handle waste disposal for the county. This position failed, in large part, due to a lack of a reasonable alternative being presented to voters.

The other positions won by Republicans were:
6th District Congress - Roscoe Bartlett
State senate District 4 - David Brinkley
State delegate district 3-b - Michael Hough
State delegate district 3-a - Pat Hogan
State delegate district 4-b - Donald Elliot
State delegate district 4-a - Keely Schulz, Kathy Afzali
State's Attorney - Charlie Smith
Clerk Circuit Court - Sandra Dalton
Register of Wills - Virginia Fifer
Judge of the Orphan's Court - Cleopatra Campbell, Mike Cady, Adrian Remsberg
Sheriff - Chuck Jenkins

The Young family made it three for three as Brad Young received the most votes in the nonpartisan Board of Education race. Joining him were James Reeder Jr., Jean Smith, and April Fleming Miller. Colleen Cusimano finished fifth, only 224 votes behind Miller so absentee and provisional ballots could affect the final outcome for the last spot.

Frederick County Elections has the unofficial results you can read here.

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