When J. Frank Raley Jr. first ran for the state legislature from St. Mary's County, he encountered two types of voters -- liberal Democrat and conservative Democrat.
Republicans were scarce throughout Southern Maryland, and there was little need to worry about facing a Republican opponent. "When you did," Raley said, "you didn't even care, because they didn't have a chance."
He represented St. Mary's in the State House in the 1950s and '60s, but the Democratic domination continued well into the past decade.
Those days are gone. Now, Republicans have narrowed the gap to within 1,600 registered voters in St. Mary's, and have slightly surpassed registered Democrats in neighboring Calvert County.
"This is red country," said Raley, who at 79 is an elder statesman of the local Democratic Party.
Registered Republicans are still vastly outnumbered in Southern Maryland's most populous county, Charles, where many new residents have arrived from one of the state's Democratic strongholds: Prince George's County.
But there are signs that even Charles is in play. As with its smaller neighbors, Charles helped Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. become Maryland's first Republican governor in a generation in 2002. He carried all three counties.
After Ehrlich's victory, Democrats realized that they could no longer rely on winning with just the Big Three liberal jurisdictions of Baltimore and Prince George's and Montgomery counties. As a result, the two Democrats vying to challenge Ehrlich next fall are spending a lot more time in Maryland's far-flung exurbs.
"There is no such thing as a spare county," Baltimore Mayor Martin O'Malley said last week, popping bite-size crab cakes into his mouth on the dock of a Broomes Island seafood joint on the Patuxent River. "We are going to contest this election in every county.''
His likely rival for the nomination, Montgomery County Executive Douglas M. Duncan, completed a statewide county-by-county tour last week that included stops at the Patuxent River Naval Air Station and an outdoor concert at St. Mary's College.
Southern Maryland's population is still dwarfed by the Big Three's, accounting for 5.6 percent of the state's 3 million voters. But it is the state's fastest-growing region, and Maryland pollster Patrick E. Gonzales said it has increasing importance.
"This is the future of the state," he said. "You go to those areas to make your case."
