pWAR and Maryland's Counties

Applying the analytical framework to the County Executive Races

With meaningful County Executive Races this year, it’s time to apply the pWAR framework to a few of them.

As a reminder, pWAR v4.2 measures a candidate’s electability relative to a generic party-line placeholder in their environment. The formula combines Electoral Value (margin vs. party baseline), a Financial Efficiency modifier, a Difficulty Adjuster bonus for candidates who’ve actually competed in hostile terrain, Legislative Productivity and Constituent Service scores for officeholders, and penalties for primary losses, general election underperformance, and perennial candidacy. For Maryland, replacement level is 1.0 pWAR for Democrats and 0.5 for Republicans, reflecting the structural partisan lean of the state. With that, let’s go county by county.

Anne Arundel County

Steuart Pittman is termed out, and what’s left behind is a genuinely competitive open-seat Democratic primary in a county that has trended blue but still swings. Three Democrats of note have filed: County Councilmember Allison Pickard (+2.4), County Councilmember Pete Smith (+1.8), and James Kitchin (+1.2), the outgoing executive’s top aide.

Pickard is the Institutional Ace in this field. She flipped a Republican-held council seat in 2018, has assembled an impressive endorsement list (Sarah Elfreth, a half-dozen General Assembly members), raised nearly $550,000, and has a demonstrated track record of winning in a district that was not supposed to be winnable. The DA_bonus credit for performing in hostile terrain goes to her alone among the top three. Her LP and CS scores reflect two terms of council work, and her FE_mod is strong given the small-dollar composition of her early fundraising.

Smith scores almost as well (+1.8) and actually led the field in early fundraising at $518,000 raised. His council tenure mirrors Pickard’s, and Shaneka Henson’s endorsement gives him a credible bloc of support. The gap between them mostly comes down to the DA_bonus, where Pickard’s history of winning competitive ground edges her out.

Kitchin is a more interesting case. He has no electoral record of his own (EV = 0 by definition for a first-time candidate), but he’s running a smart public financing campaign that looks efficient relative to its size, and the Teachers Association of Anne Arundel County endorsement is not nothing. At +1.2 he’s clearly above the Democratic replacement level, which means he’s a real candidate. He is not, however, the frontrunner.

The Republican side features Dave Crawford, a food service manager and volunteer firefighter who has raised $6,558. In a county where Pittman won re-election by seven points, Crawford scores −1.5. That number is not a knock on Crawford as a person. It’s a description of reality. He’s the embodiment of why the Republicans need to get serious about recruiting in suburban Maryland, and they haven’t.

Baltimore County