In 2002, AUGUSTUS ALZONA won over 42% of the statewide Maryland primary elections vote!

A historical perspective: Augustus Alzona stunned his critics

While spending less than $500 on a seventy-two day campaign, Augustus Alzona - not your typical Republican candidate - won over 42% of the statewide vote in the 2002 Maryland Gubernatorial Primary Election.  Alzona achieved both the highest percentage and total number of votes that any Asian Pacific American has ever received statewide in the history of Maryland.

During that historic, first-time bid for the state's second highest public office - Comptroller of Maryland - Augustus Alzona (42.3%) received more than twice the percentage of votes current Lt. Governor Michael Steele (21%) did during his own (1998) attempt for the same statewide office, though neither of them won those particular elections.  If Alzona had won that race he would have faced former Baltimore mayor and two-term Maryland governor, incumbent Comptroller William Donald Schaefer (D).  As it turned out, the political establishment supported Alzona's opponent, Gene Zarwell, a white male who described Schaefer as his "mentor" and then went on to lose to Schaefer in the general election anyway.

At that time Alzona, an elected Republican Party official (Central Committee 1998-2002), was once again a "sacrificial lamb" candidate for public office when no other credible candidates would volunteer to carry the Party's banner for certain offices in past Maryland elections.  For his loyal service to the Party, the establishment and certain hypocritical media outlets have falsely and pejoratively stereotyped him as a "frequent candidate."