While the national media was focused on the Senate primary in Rhode Island yesterday, another important primary was taking place in Maryland where voters were selecting the Democratic Senate nominee to challenge GOP Lt. Gov. Michael Steele in the open-seat race to succeed retiring Democratic Sen. Paul Sarbanes. Steele faced only nominal opposition in his primary, taking 87 percent in a 10-way field.
Rep. Ben Cardin topped a field of 18 largely unknown candidates, taking 44 percent of the vote. Former Rep. and NAACP president Kweisi Mfume placed second with 41 percent and political newcomer Josh Rales took 5 percent after spending nearly $3.6 million of his own money.
At this writing, Mfume had not conceded the race, although he and Cardin have spoken. There were problems in Montgomery and Baltimore Counties that kept the polls open an extra hour and resulted in perhaps thousands of provisional ballots. These ballots won't be counted for days and while the results aren't likely to change the outcome of the Senate primary, it appears that Mfume is keeping his powder dry. It
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