Last Tuesday, a wild rumor swept through City Hall: Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake would be resigning to join the Anthony Brown administration.

The mayor has been clear, saying publicly she plans to run for reelection in 2016 – but the story did underscore the public perception of Rawlings-Blake’s extremely close ties to the man her staff viewed as Maryland’s governor-in waiting, Lt. Gov. Anthony G. Brown.

Rawlings-Blake has been at the forefront of Brown’s well-oiled campaign to succeed his boss, Martin O’Malley, who was famously endorsed by her late father, state Delegate Howard “Pete” Rawlings, for Baltimore’s mayor in 1999.

Back in July 2013, Rawlings-Blake came out in support of Brown. Since then, she has attended countless events boosting his candidacy. She shares the same political fundraiser, Colleen Martin-Lauer, whose list of donors is the glue that holds the state Democratic Party together.

After defeating Douglas F. Gansler and Heather R. Mizeur in the Democratic primary last June, Brown apparently figured he could coast to a general election victory in a state where Democratic voters outnumber Republicans 2-1.

As he pointed out to a group of military veterans shortly before the primary, “We take that hill, and then we’ve got a little bit of a molehill to take in November.”

That molehill became Brown’s Waterloo, and, as he looks back at his defeat yesterday, he can’t be happy about his tepid support in Baltimore.

In a city that’s been overwhelmingly Democratic for decades (the last Republican member of the City Council was Daniel Ellison in 1939), Brown got less than 100,000 votes to Larry Hogan’s very respectable 32,000.

But what was key was the turnout. There were a little over 131,000 total votes in the city, whereas 253,000 came out in Baltimore County – and nearly 60% of them voted for Hogan. Even more dramatic was the lopsided vote in Anne Arundel County, where 67% of 170,000 voters supported Hogan.

Pundits Blew It

It wasn’t how it was supposed to happen, according to local party regulars, prognosticators and even national political wonk Nate Silver of the fivethirtyeight blog who was calling for a 94% chance of a Brown victory on the day before the election.

Political junkies could watch on Twitter as the possibility of a Brown defeat began first as an early return glimmer and soon flared into a full-on Democratic party flame-out.

“Watching this governor’s race through my fingers. WHAT THE HELL, MARYLAND,” wondered @annmariebrok.

Some pundits raised an eyebrow but maintained, even as the returns rolled in favoring Hogan, that the election would ultimately return to script.

“How did #MDgov get this close?? Hogan53%, Brown 46%. ” DC political blogger Nathaniel Rakich Tweeted. “Brown will still win (still lots of votes in Balt, Mont, PG) but wow.”

But Hogan’s lead emerged right away and held strong as the precincts rolled in. Both sides had reason to keep refreshing the election returns page, wondering if a last-minute stash of Brown votes from the Democratic strongholds near D.C. and in the city could save him.

“Has Baltimore city reported yet?” @annmariebrok queried the Twittersphere.

Machine Malfunction?

Analysts will be parsing the upset for days and Democrats will be pointing fingers. Victorious Baltimore County Executive Kevin Kamenetz blamed the Brown loss on “angst. . . voter fatigue. . . . a strange environment out there. . . ISIS and Ebola.”

But ultimately, the city’s Democratic machine, led by the mayor, failed their candidate (nearly every member of the current City Council came out for Brown, by the way).

For Rawlings-Blake, Brown’s defeat will surely have repercussions for some of her initiatives, such as public school funding and whether to push forward with the $3 billion Red Line project.

After first opposing financing of the Red Line Hogan later hedged, saying he’s not opposed to some spending for planning or engineering studies. But his overall transportation priorities remained clear. “We’re going to focus on building roads,” he said.

Hogan, like Brown, ran a campaign light on inspiration or the fundamental issues that will face the state over the next four years. Negative ads and accusations dominated the dialogue. For the mayor, though, Hogan’s victory will require some finesse and compromises by a politician who has little experience or inclination in either.

As Baltimore’s mayor, Rawlings-Blake has pushed herself onto the national spotlight as a highly partisan “up-and-comer” of the Democratic Party.

She was appointed secretary of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) in January 2013 – and, in that capacity, has just witnessed the rout of the Democratic Party in the U.S. Senate and in many governor races.

Her own ambitions were tied not just to Brown’s prospects but to the political capital of Martin O’Malley, whose renunciation by the electorate was another broad theme of yesterday’s election.

– Fern Shen also contributed to this story.