Donald F. Norris, professor and chair of public policy at UMBC, offered insight for today’s front-page Baltimore Sun story, “Democrats watch for Gansler’s next move,” on the state attorney general’s possible plans to run for governor. Gansler is planning to wait until the fall to announce any campaign, but Norris questions that strategy. By delaying an announcement, says Norris, “he gives a three-month advantage to Brown-Ulman. They’ll be able to out-fundraise him and go around the state as the only announced candidates.”

Norris appeared in three other news stories yesterday about the 2014 gubernatorial election. In another Baltimore Sun article he commented on Harford County Executive David Craig’s bid for the Maryland GOP nomination, suggesting that he could lose the primary if he has only one opponent and that person appeals more to the tea party wing of the GOP.

Norris notes that if Craig is successful in the June 2014 primary, he still would face long odds in the general election. As he said in a WBAL-tv interview, Brown and Ulman “really excite the Democratic base.” Further, he argued in the Washington Examiner, “A good Democratic candidate running a good campaign beats a good Republican candidate running a good campaign every time. That’s because the numbers in Maryland so favor Democrats. But anything can happen.”