36th Dist. Delegates: Smigiel (R) Defeats Manlove (D)
Cecil County incumbent Del. Michael Smigiel (R) defeated former Cecil County Commissioner Bill Manlove (D) in the multi-county district with a commanding victory in Queen Anne’s County and wins in the other counties of the district, including Cecil County.
In the other two seats at stake in the 36th District, Republicans swept to victory as well for seats representing Kent and Queen Anne’s counties.
[UPDATED with 1:37 am state elections board updated report:]
Districtwide, Smigiel tallied 25,026 votes to Manlove’s 16,352 votes– a 60.4 percent victory to 39.5 percent.
In heavily Republican Queen Anne’s County, final vote counts (except for absentee and provisional ballots that will be counted later) Smigiel registered 11,510 votes, to Manlove’s 5,341 votes.
In Cecil County, Smigiel compiled 7,297 votes to 6,526 for Manlove– 52.7 percent to 47.1 percent.
In Caroline County, Smigiel tallied 2,437 to Manlove’s 1,410 votes with all precincts reporting, local election officials told Cecil Times.
In Democratic-leaning Kent County, Smigiel received 3,782 votes to Manlove’s 3,075, with all precincts in.
The arcane voting system for the 36th District sets up contests for delegates residing in Cecil, Kent and Queen Anne’s counties, but residents of all three counties, plus part of Caroline County, vote for candidates for all three seats.
For the Cecil County seat, incumbent Republican Smigiel, who has held the seat since the 2002 election, was opposed by Manlove, the Democratic former president of the Cecil County Board of Commissioners.
For the Kent County seat—an open seat after the retirement of longtime Republican Del. Mary Roe Walkup—Democrat Art Hock, a businessman whose family founded the Crumpton antiques auctions, opposed Rock Hall mayor Jay Jacobs, a Republican.
Jacobs won handily districtwide, racking up 25,677 votes, or 62.5 percent, to Hock’s 15,381 votes or 37.4 percent. Hock spent heavily on his campaign and received large numbers of political action committee donations from organized labor groups.
But with all his spending, Hock registered less proportionately and received fewer votes districtwide than fellow Democrat Manlove, who ran a low budget campaign.
For the Queen Anne’s county seat, Republican Stephen S. Hershey was unopposed, after he barely defeated incumbent GOP Del. Richard Sossi by 124 votes in a bitter primary. Sossi refused to endorse a write-in campaign in the general election, but a protest vote of write-ins for Sossi was expected, even though they would not be officially tallied by elections officials. Districtwide, there were 881 write in votes in the contest, although it could not be determined Tuesday how many might have listed Sossi’s name.
