The dust has settled, for the most part, here in Maryland. The heaps of election night results analysis are mounting and within that heap, everyone can find anything that can legitimize their take of Lt. Governor Brown’s stunning loss; democrats usually do badly in mid-terms, his campaign strategy relied too much on rival bashing, a nationwide republican wave spilled into our state, and the list goes on. Whatever your prescription is for the recent election’s democratic hangover, the results did legitimize that here in Maryland, any Democrat running for state office can no longer afford to view the voting base as one massive body, no segment of our state’s Democratic voting base is “in the bag”, and much less, no one vote can be an afterthought.

 Our state’s democratic electorate is not one monolithic entity. By far, it’s a much more nuanced, complex, and segmented coalition, each with its own agenda that when engaged, when included at the decision table, when invested on, will enthusiastically cast its vote, in large droves. We all know of the astounding and equally historic Obama election of 2008. His engagement of young and minority voters swept him into the Oval Office. It was what made him surpass one of the greatest rivals in contemporary American politics, Hillary Clinton. Here in Maryland, 1.629 million democrats lined voting centers around the state to ensure his victory. In 2010, the same laser-focused strategy on young and minority voters gave Governor O’Malley over a million Democratic votes in the last mid-term election, for his reelection. An incumbent moving over a million votes on a mid-term election? It wasn’t just a movement, it was a crushingly impressive 14-percentage point lead over his opponent, former Republican Governor Robert Ehrlich. 

Fast forward two years later, in 2012, the same historic-like momentum and engagement helped Obama break even more votes the second time around, with over 1.677 million votes here in Maryland for the general elections. Although a Governor was not being elected, the state’s Democratic machine moved hundreds of thousands of minority voters to vote for a President at the top of the ticket and referendum questions (Question 4– Dream Act), and gay marriage (Question 6), among others. It was called a referendum on O’Malley’s legislative priorities. With overwhelming majorities, they all passed. Fast forward again two more years, to this election cycle, and in my opinion, precisely the lack of enthusiastic outreach, the lack of engagement and purpose on behalf of Lt. Gov. Anthony Brown toward each of these segments of the party yielded the results of November 4, 2014. Hence democrats doing badly in mid-terms, that theory, isn’t sufficient to explain what just happened in Maryland, it doesn’t even seem fair to label Maryland democrats a “sleepy” electorate. 

But to judge apples with apples, and not with oranges, let’s focus on both the 2010 and this year’s mid-terms. I can’t help but contrast our experience in 2010, when we re-elected Governor O’Malley, and this year’s mid-term, where Democrats underperformed in solidly blue Montgomery and Prince George’s counties.  I want to focus on one specific portion of our democratic coalition, on Latinos. 

According to the Pew Hispanic Research Center, Maryland is home to the fourth largest Latino voting population, by percentage, nationwide. It’s why we gained a majority Latino district after the 2010 Census. In “underperforming” Prince George’s and Montgomery counties; last night we increased the number of Latinos in the General Assembly; Will Campos in Prince George county’s district 47B (in an uncontested race), and Marice Morales in Montgomery County. They join State Senator Victor Ramirez, State Assembly delegates Ana Sol Gutierrez, Joseline Peña-Melnyk, and David Fraser Hidalgo. Deni Taveras squeeked in to the Prince George’s Council defeating longtime State Delegate Doyle Neimann, by six votes, after their recount. All of these folks are a major part of both counties’ political identities and narratives. Both counties are defined by their diversity; it is partially the reason for their democratic strength. 

So what happened? Why did a Prince George candidate, with the most name recognition for having served eight years as second-in-command in one of the most popular Democratic administrations of the last twenty years, lose in a state where democrats outnumber republican registered voters by more than a 2-to-1 margin?! Why did his own home county of Prince George’s underperform in getting-out-the-democratic-vote? Such results can only be explained, in my opinion, by the actions of a candidate that believed we are still one unvarying party mass that will move just on affiliation and loyalty alone. Latinos, a major component of both Montgomery and Prince George County voters and hence one major segment of that nuanced and complex democratic puzzle, were not engaged. There was no airtime, neither radio nor much less tv, dedicated to speaking to them. Despite an overwhelming number of reasons for Latinos to vote to continue the O’Malley democratic agenda, the minuscule effort made by the Lt. Governor’s campaign proved insufficient in a race where Latinos could’ve moved at least between four and six percentage points. What was the investment made to reach them by the Democratic Party? I’m still looking for any sign of it. 

Backtrack again to 2010, when then candidate for re-election Governor O’Malley made a real and enthusiastic call for Latino engagement. He mandated the Democratic Party to act, not just speak, on diversity outreach—implementing a Latino, an Asian, and African American, and several other Leadership Councils, as they were called, to enhance and parallel his outreach efforts to this democratic coalition. Governor O’Malley understood, and still does, that Democrats have differing interests and agendas, each segment hungry for a seat at the decision table. In 2010, when his opponent, former Republican Governor Robert Ehrlich, was making calls for votes based on bashing Latino voters and other new immigrants in the state dubbing them “Illegals for O’Malley,” the democratic Governor pounced at the opportunity and fearlessly doubled-down on his “our diversity is our great strength” theme. 

And he was rewarded handily. Both Montgomery and Prince George’s county voters came out en masse like it was an Obama general election. The campaign promises made then, by 2012, had been delivered on to those constituencies. Add the accomplishments of the last two years, on top of that; the driver’s license bill, the narrow adoption of the Secure Communities Program, and most recently the attention to immigrant children fleeing Central America, and you end up with so much fodder for a minority, son-of-immigrant-parents, potentially-first-Black-governor-of-the-state, to run on and win Latinos overwhelmingly, had he merely draped his campaign outreach efforts on these accomplishments alone. As I said earlier, I am still looking for the pains taken toward reaching us. 

So let it be a lesson to all my future democratic candidates statewide, that even when the odds are highly in your favor, implementing a one-program-fits-all strategy that doesn’t even regard the party’s myriad subdivisions will only take you nowhere. It was our primary 2008 lesson from the Hillary camp, it was the 2010 lesson we taught Ehrlich, and we had referenda that worked marvelously in 2012, when it made us a stake in the outcome. You will win when you realize and conquer the hearts of each of the political groups within what we call our Democratic party. We each deserve a seat at the table. Negative campaigning alone, yields last night. Our Democratic base will not move, if you don’t wholly engage, include, and invest together with us in the future of our state.