UMBC professor Donald Norris, chair of public policy, appeared on WJZ (CBS Baltimore) last night, commenting on Republican Nancy Jacobs’s campaign for the Congressional seat Democrat Dutch Ruppersberger has held since 2003. “It’s very, very hard to beat an incumbent, and I think it’s going to be very hard for anyone–Nancy Jacobs or whomever–to beat Dutch Ruppersberger,” Norris explained. He argued current public sentiment about politics may not be positive, but “it’s less an anti-incumbency mood than it is an anti-Washington, anti-Congress mood.”
Norris also commented in the Gazette on the possibility of state referendums on same-sex marriage and the Dream Act on the same ballot in 2012, suggesting that could benefit supporters of both issues more than opponents.