Montgomery County Councilman Thomas E. Perez was headed into the Democratic primary for attorney general with some pretty big backers: teachers, labor unions, environmental groups and others who could get voters to back a little-known candidate in a wide-open race.
But yesterday, just as his first television advertisement of the campaign hit the airwaves, the Court of Appeals ruled that he is ineligible for the office because he lacks the 10 years of legal experience in Maryland required by the state constitution. Perez was a federal lawyer for more than a decade, but not a member of the Maryland bar until 2001.
As a result, all that support from the liberal constituencies that make up a major chunk of the Democratic primary vote is now up for grabs.
Each of his opponents, Montgomery County State's Attorney Douglas F. Gansler and former Baltimore State's Attorney Stuart O. Simms, is laying claim to Perez's backers.
But the early sense among those watching the race is that Gansler is better poised to take advantage of the vacuum Perez left. He has had more time to build a statewide organization, he has far more campaign cash, he is better known to Perez's supporters in Montgomery County and he is already running ads on television, something Simms might not have the money to do.
"For the time being, it's a significant boost for Doug Gansler," said Keith Haller, president of Bethesda-based Potomac Inc., a public opinion research firm. "Gansler has the momentum and has the significant resource edge to take advantage of these very positive new circumstances."
A Sun poll in July showed that two-thirds of likely voters were still undecided in the race. Simms got 15 percent of the vote, Gansler 12 and Perez 6. In the fund-raising race, Gansler was well ahead in this month's campaign finance reports, with $1.4 million on hand compared with $330,000 for Perez and $66,000 for Simms.
Gansler has been preparing for this campaign for years, and he was the first candidate to begin television advertising. This month, he got endorsements from Prince George's County Executive Jack B. Johnson and U.S. Rep. Albert R. Wynn, the two most influential politicians in the jurisdiction with the largest concentration of primary voters in the state, a key bit of support from the African-American community.
And on the same day that his rival for Montgomery County voters was forced out of the race, he got the endorsement of The Washington Post.
