The last hands of political poker in the Maryland gubernatorial race saw both candidates play big names from their parties to help campaign during the final hours of a rapidly narrowing race.
Republican incumbent Gov. Robert Ehrlich met up with former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani on Sunday afternoon at a firehouse in Glenn Dale. Sunday night, Democratic challenger, Baltimore Mayor Martin O’Malley, raised the stakes at an appearance with former President Bill Clinton at a Upper Marlboro banquet hall. The campaign also plans to stump with former Vice President Al Gore today in the Montgomery County community of Leisure World.
Three polls within the past week have put the race at a dead heat with O’Malley leading Republican incumbent Gov. Robert Ehrlich by a single point. A poll by Washington’s Mason-Dixon Polling & Research done late last week put the two candidates in a tie, each with 45 percent, and said about 9 percent of the 625 voters surveyed had yet to decide on a candidate. Ehrlich and O’Malley spent the weekend bouncing between appearances in the Baltimore region and Montgomery and Prince George’s counties. Visits to religious groups ranked high for both candidates.
Ehrlich stopped at a gathering of black ministers in Baltimore on Saturday. O’Malley started Sunday at an African Methodist Episcopal church in Fort Washington, attended a Catholic mass in Baltimore and then met with Jewish leaders in Potomac later that night. Several political analysts late last week said last-minute message-pushing by candidates might easily be lost on votes burnt out by untold minutes of political ads. And, despite the effort in these last hours of the race, many believe that election night will come and go without a winner thanks to the absentee ballots requested by Maryland’s voters.
Part of the Washington DC Examiner’s 2006 election coverage.
ejacobson@dcexaminer.com
