Anne Arundel's bitter Republican primary could decide Maryland's race for governor

In the meeting room of a Baptist church in Pasadena, one Republican finished her pitch to a political club and her opponent was just warming up.

Then Faith Loudon, a former candidate for Congress and godmother of area conservatives, stepped to the microphone at the front of the room.

“Something has happened,” she said in her soft Southern Maryland accent. “We’ll have to leave because someone in this meeting has done something disrespectful of the church.”

When Loudon interrupts a meeting, you expect it to be for a prayer or to talk about the door raffle. In fact, that’s how the meeting opened. But the stunned reaction to her announcement was visible in blank looks as people occupying scores of folding chairs in the Lake Shore Baptist meeting room turned to each other and asked if they’d heard her correctly.

Was this for real?

Someone in the crowd at the North County Republican Club vandalized a notice reminding everyone entering the building that an indoor mask mandate existed in Anne Arundel County, including churches.

It was a repeat offense. It was the second time someone had damaged the notice during a club meeting. The pastor, who later confirmed the incident and the decision, was out of patience.

“We’ll have to leave, or the pastor will call the police,” Loudon said.

So, people gathered up their coats and started to shuffle into the cold February night, some grumbling, some shaking their heads in disbelief. Others quickly conferred and came up with an alternative down the street.

It was quite a night to be a Republican. The omicron variant was peaking, with hospitals full and social warriors in full political combat over masks in schools, grocery stores and church meeting rooms.

No one should be surprised that lots of conservatives come down on COVID measures. The parking lot at the Pasadena church that night had more than a few “Let’s Go Brandon” bumper stickers, a substitute for giving the verbal middle finger to President Joe Biden.

“Last time, we were supposed to wear masks,” Loudon said as the meeting reconvened a short time later. “And some people didn’t.”

Someone, unhappy about the public health mandate, vandalized a church bulletin board in protest. And now, the club is looking for a new home.

It’s a disturbing incident as the Republican Party in Maryland embarks on what should be a good year, not only in this county but across Maryland and the nation. It represents the dramatic shift to the party of anger recently, not only here but across the country.

Maryland Republicans could tap into the passion that leads someone to tear up a church flier on mask mandates, believe Donald Trump’s claims of election fraud and refuse to see Jan. 6 for what it was. But that would risk losing the independent vote crucial to victory in November.

Or they could return to talking about tax rates and clearing the way for business owners to save the state through the power of free enterprise. What then happens to the angry Republicans?

The key question for the party is that if primary voters go one way, do they alienate the party voters committed to the other direction? Will Republican factions stay home if their candidate loses in the June primary?

Nowhere in Maryland is this question more relevant than in Anne Arundel County.

Dirk Haire, chairman of the Maryland Republican Party, thinks he knows the answer.

He says party polling shows 16% of Maryland Republican voters are hardcore Make America Great believers while 11% are what’s left of the Never Trump faction. The remaining 73% are happy with what Trump accomplished, even if they're ready to move on from the fight over his excesses.

More importantly, Haire sees that divide as less critical to Maryland Republicans than it may be to party voters in more conservative parts of the country.

“We’re in a year that will be about state and local results,” he said.

Maryland is not Texas. Republicans here live in a state dominated by Democrats. Winning statewide office requires the right set of circumstances, good candidates, national tailwinds and exhaustion with the party most often in power.

Gov. Larry Hogan, a frequent Trump critic, remains the most popular Republican in Maryland as he enters his final year in office. His anointed successor, former state commerce secretary Kelly Shultz of Frederick County, doesn’t have any serious opposition in the primary.

Instead, she's running against Dan Cox, a Trump-backed state delegate from Frederick County who wants to impeach Hogan.

National trends could suppress the Democratic majority in Maryland as independent voters seek to punish Biden on any number of issues, inflation, COVID and the deadly withdrawal from Afghanistan among them. The governor’s mansion in Virginia just flipped back to Republican, and the Maryland party is picking up on the themes that worked across the Potomac.

“We’ve won three of the last five races for governor…” Haire said. “It can’t be an accident.”

Things are looking good for the GOP in Schultz’s home county, where the executive’s seat is open because of term limits for Democrat Jan Gardiner. State Sen. Michael Hough is the only Republican to file so far and will face the winner of a three-way Democratic primary. Hough is a prolific fundraiser who earned more votes than Gardiner in the last election cycle.

Frederick is one of two counties Republicans see as crucial this fall. Popular Democratic incumbents in Howard and Frederick counties appear on a clear path for re-election, but Haire and others in the party like their chances in Anne Arundel.

County Executive Steuart Pittman took an activist approach to COVID, ordering mask mandates, indoor-dining bans and other steps to save lives. He is a believer in the power of government to fix problems, rather than the Republican view that government is the problem.

He raised the income tax and maximized the property tax to pay for popular objectives like long-sought teacher raises and other school spending. He hired more police and firefighters but expanded government in a range of other areas, too. All of it is what he said he would do, use government in ways he thinks make life in the county better.

That gives him a record to run on, and he appears confident he can win with it. But Republicans see it as a target.

There have been protests and lawsuits over COVID restrictions, most recently in schools. There is strong historic support for laissez-faire government in the county or at least the notion that a good government is the one that governs least.

What happens in Anne Arundel is essential. If Schultz is going to win against whichever Democrat emerges from its crowded primary in June – the path travels right through Frederick and Anne Arundel counties. Winning local races in each would provide a big boost.

It’s swing counties like these two that can muck up the Democratic road map to the Governor’s Mansion, outnumbering vote-rich Democratic strongholds of Baltimore City, Prince George’s and Montgomery counties in years when voter turnout is light. It’s not always a guarantee, but it’s how Hogan won in 2012.

Four years later, Haire said, Hogan ran a race that broke all the recent norms of Maryland politics and set him up as part of the conversation about a bid for president in 2024.

"Hogan just out-performed his opponent," Haire said. "He is a talented politician who ran a stellar race."

Of course, you have to have the right candidate to win the executive’s office.

In Anne Arundel, the Republican contest is mainly between County Councilwoman Jessica Haire and former state Del. Herb McMillan. There are at least three other candidates in the mix, but none is a serious contender.

When the North County Republican Club reconvened in its hastily relocated meeting at the Lake Shore Volunteer Fire Department hall, the pitches from Haire and McMillan were radically different.

Haire is an establishment Republican who talks about an income tax cap and deficit spending and turns up at restaurant ribbon cuttings. McMillan is a culture warrior, tossing around phrases such as “socialist totalitarian state” and joining picket lines and lawsuits to protest mask mandates.

She’s the party choice, with backing from prominent state lawmakers and the state party chairman, who happens to be her husband. McMillian is a party outcast, someone who never worked well with leadership in the legislature and was widely known to annoy the hell out of Hogan.

“I think Herb is pretty far out there,” said James Appel, county Republican Party chair. “When he decided not to run for re-election in ’18, he went out with a bang. He called the party all sorts of names.”

Not that being an outcast bugs McMillan: he bears it as a badge of pride.

McMillan is a smart guy who appeals to a certain kind of Republican. Once that was the tax-adverse, get-government-out-of-the-way crowd. Now it is the “Let’s Go Brandon” element in attendance at that Pasadena fire hall in February.

Both Haire and McMillan did things all candidates do in a primary that night, play to the base they need in June rather than the middle they want to win in November. Sometimes that meant partial truths.

Haire attacked the county decision to turn down a national grocer that wanted to redevelop a vacant office complex in Annapolis over demands on parking. She barely mentioned the developer who stepped in months later with a mixed-use project giving the county what it wanted all along. She talked about duplicate votes in the Annapolis race for mayor but didn't say it was three elderly voters confused by mail-in ballots.

McMillan touted his runs for state Senate and Annapolis mayor but failed to mention he lost both races. He explained how he overcame humble beginnings to attend the Naval Academy, where he met his future wife. He didn’t tell the crowd that they’d been divorced for years.

Haire is polished and poised, a lawyer and an engineer. McMillan is a Naval Academy grad and an airline pilot who strives for casual and folksy. She has bullet points; he quotes Lincoln five times in an evening.

He went on the attack often but scored points when he criticized Haire's vote in 2021 for a resolution condemning the Jan. 6 insurrection and urging that Trump be disqualified from future office.

She said she believes in the rule of law over party and that her support for condemning a violent attack on the Capitol outweighed an amendment tacked on by Democrats about disqualifying Trump.

McMillan accused her of trying to sit on both sides of the issue. The North County Republicans are the most conservative club in the county, and McMillan found some common ground there.

But Haire got some zingers in too. When McMillan jumped on her for loaning her campaign $500,000, Haire said she would invest her own money first before asking others to contribute.

There were more than a few heads nodding.

If Dirk Haire is correct, most voters don't care about issues like these. They are ready to move on from the anger of Donald Trump politics and back to those chamber of commerce Republican values.

Even if Republican voters in the county agree with Trump's policies, they also agree with the criticism leveled by Hogan.

If Haire is wrong, a bitter county primary could leave part of the Republican electorate on the sidelines in November, and that would make it that much harder for a Republican to win in a Democratic state.

Anne Arundel could be the deciding factor for Maryland’s next governor.

CORRECTION: This essay has been corrrected. Del. Dan Cox is from Frederick County.

Rick Hutzell is a nationally recognized journalist. He lives in Annapolis. Contact him at meanwhileannapolis@gmail.com.