Finance reports show the Republican spent $1.1 million between January 2019 and Election Day, mostly on campaign mailers and advertising online and on television. That is an astounding number for a relatively small media market.

Technically, Democrat Jessica Fitzwater did not approach that level of spending, reporting $653,000 on her campaign. But her candidacy was backed by a Super PAC that spent about $402,000 on advertisements for Fitzwater.

Add together the direct spending by the Fitzwater campaign and the Super PAC, and it totals $1.06 million — about equal to what Hough spent.

After all that advertising and spending, Fitzwater won the election by just 989 votes.

The Super PAC backing Fitzwater was called Marylanders for Freedom and Opportunity. It was strongly supported by the teachers union, the electrical workers union and other progressive groups and individuals.

A Super PAC makes independent expenditures, rather than payments directly to a campaign, and cannot coordinate with candidates.

This level of spending makes it likely that in election cycles to come, county executive contenders will need to raise and spend even more money, and most of it will come from special interest groups.

After Frederick voters changed the form of government from county commission to executive and County Council, Jan Gardner spent less than $250,000 in each of her successful executive campaigns, in 2014 and 2018.

Her 2014 opponent was former County Commissioner Blaine Young, the most controversial member of that family political dynasty. After toying with a run for governor, Young switched to executive and reported raising and spending almost $1 million in his unsuccessful quest.

His high-dollar run was seen as an outlier then, but it is likely to become the baseline for future contests. And more money inevitably leads to more expectation of greater influence from big donors.

Another political change can be seen in the composition of the County Council.

Since the first council was elected in 2014, there were four Republicans and three Democrats, then three Republicans, three Democrats and an independent (who changed from Republican); then four Democrats and three Republicans; then the current five Democrats and two Republicans.

The tenor of the council is also likely to change.

Michael Blue, the Republican who represented most of the upcounty areas, was upset in the GOP primary by Mason Carter, who went on to win the election. Blue worked cooperatively with the Democrats on many issues, and that was the primary grounds on which Carter attacked him in the primary.

Finally, we have the change in the bipartisan functioning of the local delegation in Annapolis.

Frederick used to send eight legislators to the capital — four Democrats and four Republicans. Because of redistricting of our growing county, our delegation now numbers 15. Districts based in Washington County and Carroll County were redrawn to include relatively small numbers of Frederick residents. Those districts are all Republican.

The new split was reflected when the delegation met to pick a chair and vice chair.

Previously, the parties rotated the offices each year. But this year, Republicans voted themselves as both chair and vice chair.

Being chairman of the delegation is roughly as important as being chair of the English department at a small liberal arts college. Other than having to oversee county-specific bills, it is largely ceremonial, but is fought over nonetheless. Vice chair ranks even lower.

With Republicans winning all of those seats, it was perhaps inevitable that the four Democrats would be ignored. To the victors go the spoils, thin as they are.

But we cannot help but be saddened by another sign of the end of bipartisanship in Frederick County, where changes have been piling up in local politics.