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FILE: Undated: Maryland Rep. Andy Harris, Washington, D.C.(AP)

Maryland Democrats are pouring into the race to replace party member Sen. Barbara Mikulski, but her announced retirement appears to have caught Republicans by surprise with top prospects still on the sidelines.

Rep. Andy Harris is considered the first in line, as the only Maryland Republican in Congress.

Harris told FoxNews.com on Wednesday that hes considering a run but wont make a decision until the fall.

Were certainly going to take a look at it and see how it shakes out, said the three-term congressmen, who also made clear that other potential candidates were free to decide on their own timelines.

The party primaries for the open seat will be in April 2016.

Mikulskis retirement has sparked so much interest from potential Democratic candidates in Maryland because the state has had only three senators in the past 38 years.

Though Maryland is considered one of the most liberal states in the country, Republicans feel empowered after businessman Larry Hogans 2014 gubernatorial upset victory over Democratic Lt. Gov. Anthony Brown, in which Hogan became only the second Republican governor in Maryland in nearly four decades.

Among the other GOP candidates mentioned for the Mikulski seat are former Maryland congressman and Gov. Robert Ehrlich, former congresswoman Connie Morella and former Maryland Secretary of State Mary Kane.

Harris said a potential Kane or Morella run would make sense considering Mikulskis legacy -- the longest-serving woman in the history of Congress who has held her Senate seat since 1987.

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Maryland Democrats jump at shot for Mikulski's Senate seat while Republicans stay on sidelines

No matter whom Republicans nominate to face Hillary Rodham Clinton in November2016, that candidate will start at a disadvantage. Its not polling, Clintons deep rsum or the improving state of the economy. Its the electoral college.

Yes, the somewhat arcane yet remarkably durable way in which presidential elections are decided tilts toward Democrats in 2016, as documented by nonpartisan political handicapper Nathan Gonzales in a recent edition of the Rothenberg & Gonzales Political Report.

Gonzales notes that if you add up all of the states that are either safe for the eventual Democratic nominee or favor that nominee, you get 217 electoral votes. (A candidate needs to win 270 to be elected president.) Do the same for states safe or favoring the Republican standard-bearer, per Gonzaless rankings, and you get just 191 electoral votes.

That Democratic advantage becomes even more pronounced if you add to the partys total the states that lean Democratic, according to Gonzales. Put Pennsylvania (20 electoral votes), Iowa (6) and Nevada (6) into the Democratic column and the partys electoral vote count surges to 249 just 21 votes short of winning a third straight presidential race. (Gonzales doesnt rate any states as lean Republican.)

Such a scenario is decidedly realistic given that President Obama not only won all three of those lean Democratic states in 2008 and 2012 but that he did so by an average of eight points in Iowa and nine points in Nevada. And, the last Republican presidential nominee to carry Pennsylvania was George H.W. Bush, way back in 1988.

Gonzaless analysis, which some will dismiss as premature but I applaud (its never too early!), reaffirms one of the most important and undercovered story lines in presidential politics in the past decade: the increasing Democratic dominance in the electoral college.

After the near-ties of the 2000 and 2004 elections, Obama ushered in this new era. He won 365 electoral college votes in his sweeping 2008 victory and, perhaps even more surprisingly, 332 electoral votes in the 2012 election, which was regarded by many neutral observers as something close to a tossup going into Election Day.

This harks back to the sort of upper hand that Republicans enjoyed in the 1980s, when Ronald Reagan won 489 electoral votes in 1980 and 525 electoral votes in 1984; Bush followed that up with 426 electoral votes in 1988.

Democrats are hoping for a similar run in 2016, and theres some reason to believe it might happen. Of the six states with the largest number of electoral votes (the number of House members plus two for their U.S. senators), only one Texas (38 electoral votes) is safely in the Republican column, and California (55), New York (29) and Illinois (20) are all safely Democratic, according to Gonzales.

Then there is the fact that Democrats have become increasingly dominant among Hispanics, which has turned states such as Nevada, New Mexico and, to a lesser extent, Colorado, much more friendly to their side. Consider this: In 2004, George W. Bush won New Mexico over John F. Kerry. About a decade later, neither party spent a dime in the Land of Enchantment, and Obama won it by 10 points. (This trend, if not disrupted by Republicans, will make Arizona and Georgia potentially competitive by the 2020 election.)

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In 2016 race, an electoral college edge for Democrats

Calling the current congressional impasse over immigration reform a travesty, Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito urged Latinos to get out to the polls in 2016 during a speech in her native Puerto Rico.

The truth is our influence has been felt and seen, but it has not truly been decisive, Ms. Mark-Viverito told the Latino Victory Project, a national group that advocates for Latino candidates and voices. In 2016, were going to change that.

Issues important to Latino votersimmigration reform chief among themhave been in the fore of national elections in recent years, as Latinovoters make up more and more of the U.S. population and, in turn, the electorate. Republicans in particular have worked to be more appealing to Latino voters, who have often swayed national elections into the favor of Democrats.

But Ms. Mark-Viverito urged thoseat the Latino Victory Project eventnot to take for granted headway made on issues she identified as important to their community, including the economy and healthcare.

In each of these issues, weve seen what will happen if the wrong candidates get electedand it isnt pretty. On immigration, whats happened in Congress is a travesty, Ms. Mark-Viverito said, according to her prepared remarks. Political fear mongering has created such a toxic political environment that some called unaccompanied minorschildrendiseased. Or call humans illegal. No human is illegal. Its a derogatory term that must be swept away.

She argued that GOP presidential candidates have also pushed a pro-deportation, anti-family agenda that she called inhumane.

Ms. Mark-Viverito pointed outthat while Latinos are 17 percent of the population, they made up just 10 percent of the electorate in 2012with a voter turnout just about the same as in 2008.

This means for all the stories about a giant being awoken, we still have not fully roused from our slumber, she said.

In addition to immigration, Ms. Mark-Viverito highlighted income inequalitysaying net worth in Latino households dropped 14 percent from 2010 to 2013and healthcare as key priorities for Latino constituents. saying a rollback of the Affordable Care Act would be disastrous.

These are the stakes forLatinosas we look to 2016. For too long, our issues have been ignored, forgotten or disregarded. But no more.No puede ganar la Casa Blanca sin nosotros, she said in Spanish, before translating, You cant win the White House without us. No candidates, no matter their background, should take us for granted next year.

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Citing Immigration Travesty in Congress, Mark-Viverito Urges Latinos to Vote

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