Maryland News by Max

With the weather creating a delay followed by a great big slowdown, the three combatants in the 1st District Congressional race are awaiting the returns on Tuesday night on the Eastern Shore.

"I don't have any numbers yet," Chris Meekins, spokesman for challenger Andy Harris, told PolitickerMD a short time ago, speaking on his cellphone from Harris's Crab House (a Harris of no relation, he noted).

E.J. Pipkin spokeswoman Andi Morony likewise expressed reservation about predicting the results in the hard fought three-way GOP primary.

LANHAM - The polls were originally supposed to close over an hour ago, but at the IBEW building here where U.S. Rep. Al Wynn hopes to address his Democratic Party troops tonight with a victory speech, there are a handful of union men doubled over with laughter as one of their own regales them with his best recollections of the speeches of Abe Lincoln.

Scattered among empty seats and facing the podium are pressmen encumbered with cameras munching on food they've retrieved from the long catering hall style spread.

SILVER SPRING - In what is usually identified as the classic afternoon lull period of Election Day, another cluster of Obama volunteers blew in off the sleet-hammered Silver Spring streets and made their way over to Dallas Lipp, whose prominently displayed red button, "Republicans for Obama,’ produced some wary double takes.

"I was one - all my life," said Lipp, juggling a clipboard crammed with names and absorbing this next wave. "I switched my party affiliation and became a Democrat in November of last year."

MITCHELLVILLE- Distributing last minute leaflets outside Kingsford Elementary School this morning, shaking hands, hugging voters, working his cellphone, offering coffee in the cold, operating overtime, U.S. Rep. Al Wynn showed every indication he knows he's in a battle here on Election Day.