A new poll released this morning reaffirms what we’re already seeing: Gov. Larry Hogan is sitting pretty in the lead-up to this November’s gubernatorial election.
The latest survey, released by Mason-Dixon Polling this morning, has Hogan in the lead by 15 points, with 52 percent of voters supporting him to Jealous’ 37 percent. Nine percent are still undecided.
The breakdown shared by WBAL indicates Hogan is heavily (and predictably) favored in more rural areas, with 69 percent of the hypothetical vote in the Eastern Shore and Southern Maryland and 73 percent in Western Maryland. He also has a strong presence in Baltimore County, with 62 percent of voters there saying they’d pick him if the election were today.
Jealous’ strongholds are in Baltimore City (62 percent) and Prince George’s County (56 percent), as well as, sort of, Montgomery County (49 percent to Hogan’s 41 percent). But as the poll’s analysis notes, “these margins are significantly smaller than most Democrats have achieved in recent state elections.” Case in point: According to the official results from the 2014 election that Hogan won, 75 percent of Baltimoreans picked Anthony Brown, along with 84 percent of Prince George’s County voters and 62 percent of Montgomery County voters.
If there is a silver lining for Jealous here, it’s that Mason-Dixon’s calculated 15-point gap suggests the situation isn’t quite as dire as the recent Goucher Poll—which had him down 22 points to Hogan—suggested. Jealous’ camp has noticed this, and issued an optimistic statement today (with the caveat that the newest poll doesn’t account for those unlikely to vote, a group Jealous is hoping to rouse on Nov. 6). His team also nodded to the fact that the Democratic nominee ran his first TV ad in the general election less than two weeks ago.
“While we do not know whether this poll reflects the full potential of our numbers in a Democratic surge election, even this data suggests that Ben Jealous is already closing the gap between him and Larry Hogan and we have barely spent any money on getting our message out to voters,” Jealous campaign senior adviser Kevin Harris said in a statement.
Hogan’s camp didn’t put out any statement this morning, instead continuing its signature move of linking to press clips stating his obvious lead in the race.
The Mason-Dixon poll surveyed 625 registered voters, with a 4 percent margin of error.
