Washington Post: “Md. Democrats Struggle In Governor’s Race”

The Washington Post is sounding the alarm for Democrats in the Maryland governor’s race in a scathing report, detailing how Democrats are struggling with an incredibly weak field and a “lackluster” front-runner.

Facing the second most popular governor in the country, Maryland Democrats are failing at the fundamentals. Their candidates aren’t raising the money needed to compete, lack name recognition, and are too inexperienced and too liberal to credibly challenge Larry Hogan.

And the establishment’s pick, Rushern Baker? He’s “running a lackluster primary campaign…has not stood out at candidate forums,” and doesn’t “draw large crowds.”

Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia Center for Politics, concludes that Governor Hogan is “looking pretty good as of May.”

The Washington Post reports,

But the candidate backed by most of the state Democratic establishment — Prince George’s County Executive Rushern L. Baker III — is running a lackluster primary campaign, analysts say. He has struggled to raise money and has relatively little cash on hand a month before the primary, according to reports filed this week.

Senior Democratic elected officials who support Baker are expressing frustration that he has not broken away from a pack of comparatively little-known rivals, and concern that the rest of the field may be too inexperienced, too liberal or too lacking in name recognition to strongly challenge Hogan this fall.