Free Republic

Eric Wargotz has won the Republican nomination to run against Democratic U.S. Sen. Barbara Mikulski in Maryland. Wargotz defeated 10 other Republican candidates Tuesday. Wargotz is a doctor who has served as a Queen Anne's County commissioner on the Eastern Shore.

Longtime Maryland Democratic Senator Barbara Mikulski continues to hold a double-digit lead over the best-known of her 11 Republican challengers. A new Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of Likely Maryland Voters finds that Mikulski earns 55% of the vote, while Eric Wargotz, a doctor and county commissioner, gets 39% support. Three percent (3%) like some other candidate, and another three percent (3%) are undecided. Last month, Mikulski posted a 58% to 33% lead over Wargotz. In February, Mikulski earned 54% support when matched against an unnamed generic Republican candidate who won 36% of the vote. Both parties will pick their Senate...

When Sen. Barbara Mikulski squelched rumors of her impending retirement by announcing she's ready for a fifth term, she also put a damper on the career aspirations of ambitious Maryland politicians. "The only people who want Mikulski out more than Republicans are elected Democrats for whom she is posing a logjam in upward mobility," said Don Murphy, a former Maryland delegate and GOP strategist who advises Republican Mikulski challenger Eric Wargotz.

Standing in the expansive basement family room of a Fulton mansion, Dr. Eric S. Wargotz explained why he thinks 2010 will be so kind to Republicans that he's got a chance to replace four- term U.S. Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski, arguably Maryland's most popular Democrat. "I'm running because I believe I can do it," said Wargotz, 53, a first-term Queen Anne's County commissioner. "I see an opening here. Look at Scott Brown," he said, referring to the once-obscure Massachusetts Republican state senator catapulted to national celebrity by winning a special election for the late Sen. Edward M. Kennedy's Senate seat....