Charles Mathias

If the Maryland GOP loses their first district House seat, they would be down to just one Republican in the state congressional delegation.  That would be the least since 1961, when Charles Mathias was the lone Congressman.  Democrats picked up two House seats in the 1958 general election, giving them a 7-0 majority -- but both U.S. Senators were Republicans.  Mathias beat an incumbent in 1960. 

Fife Symington, the grandson of steel magnate Henry Clay Frick, ran for Congress in Maryland three times as a Republican without success.  He ran for an open seat in 1958 when four-term incumbent James Devereaux ran for Governor.  That turned out to be a bad year for Republicans nationally: Devereaux lost to Millard Tawes 63%-37% and Daniel Brewster, a 35-year-old state legislator, won the seat 61%-39%.  Symington ran again in 1960 and Brewster beat him 59%-41%.  His third bid came in 1962, when Brewster ran for U.S. Senator and lost the open seat to Clarence Long, 52%-48%.  When Richard Nixon became President, he appointed Symington to serve as the U.S. Ambassador to Trinidad and Tobago.  He was a cousin of Stuart Symington, a U.S. Senator from Missouri and a candidate for the 1960 Democratic presidential nomination, and the father of Fife Symington III, who was elected Governor of Maryland in 1990 and served until his conviction on federal bank fraud charges in 1997.

Maryland has fourteen living former Members of Congress; the oldest is Marjorie Holt, who turns 88 on Wednesday.  The Anne Arundel Republican was elected to the House in 1972 and served until her retirement in 1986.  The others: Michael Barnes, Robert Bauman, Helen Delich Bentley, Beverly Byron, Roy Dyson, Bob Ehrlich, Lawrence Hogan, Charles Mathias, Thomas McMillan, Kweisi Mfume, Connie Morella, Paul Sarbanes and Albert Wynn.

Only four states have gone longer than Maryland without electing a Republican to the United States Senate: West Virginia, New Jersey, Massachusetts and Hawaii; North Dakota has gone as long as Maryland -- 27 years. The last Republican to win a U.S. Senate seat was Charles McC. Mathias in 1980. 

U.S. Sen. Barbara Mikulski will turn 72 years old on July 20. If -- more like when, as her aides will point out -- she seeks re-election in 2010, she will be 80 years old at the end of that term.

As to the Mikulski Commission’s legacy, its recommendations to the DNC were to lessen the influence of primaries in the presidential nominating process.

Sen. Charles MathiasOnly four states have gone longer than Maryland without electing a Republican to the United States Senate: West Virginia, New Jersey, Massachusetts and Hawaii; North Dakota has gone as long as Maryland -- 27 years. The last Republican to win a U.S. Senate seat was Charles McC. Mathias in 1980.