O'Malley hopes Obama ties, unions can cause turnout spike in Prince George's | TBD.com

Late Friday night, Gov. Martin O'Malley was shaking the last few hands on his way out of a union hall in Forrestville when Jos Williams made him a promise.

"We'll deliver Montgomery County and Prince George's County," the president of the Metropolitan Washington Council of the AFL-CIO pledged. "The western half of the state can do what the hell it wants."

O'Malley's re-election campaign will need to do more than just win Prince George's if the incumbent is to top the Republican nominee, former Gov. Bob Ehrlich, in the Nov. 2 general election. It'll need robust voter turnout far in excess of the middling 21 percent on primary day. Turning out voters in Prince George's will require heaps of support from the county's unions, plus some payoff from the incumbent's closeness with President Barack Obama.