Voter turnout on election day and during early voting in the 2018 Montgomery County gubernatorial primary election increased by about 29 percent when compared to the last gubernatorial primary in 2014.
About 22 percent of the county’s 644,000 registered voters voted in the primary this year.
Residents cast 36,325 ballots during early voting—nearly double the amount cast during the week-long early voting period for the 2014 gubernatorial primary election.
On primary election day, voters cast 107,982 ballots—an increase of about 22 percent over the 84,160 ballots cast on election day in the gubernatorial primary four years ago.
A total of 123,239 Democrats cast ballots during early voting and on election day. That’s about 32 percent of the approximately 380,500 registered Democrats in the county.
Currently, County Council member Marc Elrich holds less than a 300-vote lead over businessman David Blair in the Democratic county executive race. The race will be decided by the final counts of absentee and provisional ballots, which are ongoing. The eventual winner of the primary for the county’s top political post likely could receive about 38,000 Democratic votes—just less than 10 percent of the Democratic electorate.
If that person then goes on to beat Republican county executive nominee Robin Ficker in the general election, which is likely given the Democrats’ 3-to-1 dominance in registered voters, the next county executive will have been nominated by about 6 percent of the county’s registered voters and about 3.5 percent of the county’s 1.04 million residents.
Republicans cast 15,639 votes during early voting and on election day, which is about 14 percent of the approximately 113,200 registered Republicans in the county.