GOP likely to keep its seat

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By Tom LoBianco

ANNAPOLIS | The Maryland Democratic Party's hopes to pick up an Eastern Shore congressional seat held for the last 17 years by Republicans seem to be fading.

Longtime congressional handicappers have yet to pick Queen Anne's County State's Attorney Frank M. Kratovil Jr. as a likely winner when they compile their lists of seats expected to change hands this year. Instead, they give a strong edge to his Republican opponent, state Sen. Andrew P. Harris.

"Clearly [Maryland's First Congressional District] is a considerably Republican district," said David Wasserman, House editor for the Cook Political Report. "This is a district that politically behaves more like parts of Texas. It [votes] 10 points more Republican than the national average."

More broadly, Democrats are expected to pick up multiple seats held by Republicans in the Northeast in November.

Mr. Kratovil has secured a spot in the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee's "Red to Blue" program, meant to target seats held by vulnerable Republican congressmen.

Mr. Harris, Baltimore County Republican, beat 17-year incumbent Rep. Wayne T. Gilchrest in a vicious primary election earlier this year. Since then, state Democrats have made a hard push for Mr. Kratovil, saying that with the moderate Mr. Gilchrest out of the way, a takeover should be easier.

"Frank is very much the middle of the road, bipartisan type of candidate capable of getting support in this district," said Mr. Kratovil's campaign manager, Tim McCann.

Maryland strategists have pointed to Democratic upsets in special elections in Republican strongholds in Mississippi and Louisiana earlier this year.

But the buzz seems not to have transferred to Maryland's First District — where Republicans including President Bush and former Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. have won by large margins in the last decade.

The Cook Political Report lists the district as "likely Republican" and the Rothenberg Political Report does not list the contest among its 63 competitive House races.

"It's not impossible to imagine an upset," said Larry J. Sabato, director of the Center For Politics at the University of Virginia and author of Sabato's Crystal Ball 2008, which pegs the district vote as "likely Republican."

"Let's see whether Gilchrest endorses the Democrat," he said.

Mr. Gilchrest has not endorsed anyone in the race, although his chief of staff and other longtime campaign aides have decamped to Mr. Kratovil's campaign.

The state's most powerful Democrats, including House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer, Gov. Martin O'Malley and Rep. Chris Van Hollen, who runs the party's congressional campaign committee, have all taken an optimistic view of Mr. Kratovil's chances.

"Given the results we saw in the special elections in Louisiana and Mississippi, Kratovil belongs on the list, and he is running a strong grassroots campaign and will have the money to compete," Mr. Van Hollen wrote in washingtontimes.com chat last month.

Mr. Kratovil may be the victim of one of his family's longest-standing political supporters, Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller Jr.

Mr. Miller, Southern Maryland Democrat, was influential in 2002's redistricting, which established Maryland's First and Sixth Congressional Districts as Republican strongholds, while opening up the Second and Eighth districts for the Democrats.