Leaning Republican?

Baltimore County residents went to bed Monday and slept through an apparent seismic shift in voter demographics.

OK, not really, but on Tuesday Main Street Communications touted its work on Kevin Kamenetz's 2010 county executive campaign, claiming a win in a county that leans Republican.

"Sometimes when everyone else is loud, it is better to be quiet," reads the copy on Main Street Communications' Vimeo video channel. "And when everyone else is negative, it is better to be positive. This unique endorsement ad for Kevin Kamenetz helped him win the County Executive's race 54% - 46% in a lean-Republican county—and generated some great free press as well."

Main Street Communications is a DC-based political media strategy company that has worked on a number of Democratic campaigns including Rep. Elijah Cummings locally and Ohio Rep. Dennis Kucinich.

Trouble is...the statement about political registration is not true.

Baltimore County, while historically a relatively conservative suburban county in Maryland, is still pretty blue when it comes to nearly every measurement.

Voter registration statistics from the Maryland State Board of Elections showed registered Democrats outnumbered registered Republicans in November 2010 by a slightly more than a 2-1 margin—about the historical average in these parts.

Representation on nearly every level of government also favors Democrats.

It's true that the county is home to a number of so-called Reagan-Ehrlich Democrats, many of whom are blue-collar fiscally and social conservative Dems clustered mostly on the eastside.

Baltimore County elected Robert Ehrlich to congress and was the margin of victory in his 2002 gubernatorial campaign. But it's also the county that turned against its native son in 2006 and 2010.

But the political power has shifted away from that region.

The west side of the county is becoming more democratic. In 2002, Jim Smith, a Reisterstown native, won office by essentially winning every precinct west of I-83. West side dominance is a trend that has continued with Kamenetz's election.

Baltimore County hasn't had a Republican County Executive since 1990, when Rodger Hayden served his one and only term. Kamenetz's election represents five consecutive terms of control of the executive branch for county Democrats.

Currently on the council, two of the seven seats are controlled by Republicans—a gain of one since the 2002 elections. It's still lower than the historic high-water mark when the GOP controlled three seats and managed to elect Doug Riley chairman in 1990.

At the state level, two of the county's eight state senators are Republican (one of those—Sen. Joseph Getty—has a district that is mostly in Carroll County). In the House, the GOP holds eight of 21 seats—one less than they controlled after the 2002 election but one more than they controlled after the 2006 campaign.

So there's little need to change the county's color on a political map, no matter what you might read on the Internet.