Moneyball for Primaries

Introducing pWAR, the framework that finally lets you grade a primary election field quantitatively instead of on vibes

There’s a scene in Moneyball where Billy Beane sits across from his scouts and listens to them argue about whether a particular prospect has “a good face.”

The scouts weren’t stupid. They were using the tools they had. The problem was that their tools were vibes. Expensive, confident, deeply felt vibes, but still vibes. And vibes, as Billy Beane eventually made very clear, do not win baseball games.

I’ve been watching the primary process in Maryland and elsewhere for thirty-plus years, and I know those scouts would feel right at home.

The typical argument about who should run and who the party “should” coalesce around, who “has the best shot,” who “connects with voters”, is mostly vibes. Name recognition dressed up as analysis. Past titles are mistaken for present value. The candidate who ran before, and lost, and is running again, is treated as the experienced hand rather than the demonstrated loser they actually are.

Candidates and activists needed a better framework. Now, we have one. And it tells us that the Republican candidate in Maryland with the best odds of winning in November is……John Myrick?!?

pWAR ( Political Wins Above Replacement) is a metric I’ve developed for exactly this problem. pWAR is designed to work in any state, for any party, in any competitive cycle. Maryland is where we’re applying it first, because Maryland has rich data, a most urgent need, and, of course familiarity.

Let’s explain what pWAR is, how it works, and what it tells us about the 2026 Maryland Republican gubernatorial primary. The results are not flattering for the field.