A new poll by Gonzales Research & Media Services shows what many others before it have: Gov. Larry Hogan holds a substantial lead as we near the November election.
In a survey of 806 registered voters between Oct. 1 and 6, the polling company found 54 percent back Hogan, a Republican, compared to 36 percent supporting Jealous, a Democrat. Eight percent of voters remain undecided, and 2 percent say they will vote for either Libertarian candidate Shawn Quinn or Green Party candidate Ian Schlakman.
The support for Hogan may have given a down-ballot bump to Republican Attorney General Candidate Craig Wolf, who trails current Democrat A.G. Brian Frosh by 9 points with nearly a quarter of respondents remaining undecided.
“Frosh’s margin today is significantly less than it was a couple of months ago and down 20 points from a public poll released in September,” the poll said. “But this is still blue Maryland, and it is hard to imagine Democrat Frosh being defeated, an upset that would shake the walls of quaint Annapolis to their very foundation.”
Jealous and his campaign have made clear they think anger with President Donald Trump will increase turnout among Democrat voters and propel him to Annapolis, in spite of all the polls showing a substantial gap.
But a breakdown of the numbers in the Gonzales poll reveals this path to victory is not so clear-cut: A third of the members of Jealous’ party say they will vote for Hogan. More than half of unaffiliated voters say they’ll do the same.
Looking at Baltimore City as an example, Jealous only has 50 percent of the vote, according to the poll. In the 2014 general election, former Lt. Gov. Anthony Brown got 73 percent of the vote in the state’s largest city. In 2010, when former Gov. Martin O’Malley, who previously served as mayor here, was running for re-election, he got 82 percent.
As WAMU reporter Martin Austermuhle points out, that trend continues into the D.C. suburbs of Montgomery and Prince George’s counties, both traditional Democrat strongholds. Hogan is running even with Jealous in the former, the poll found.
And even the numbers in Prince George’s County are problematic for Jealous. The Gonzales poll has Jealous up 64-23 there. But in 2010, O’Malley got 87.9% of the vote there, and in 2014 Brown got 84% there.
— Martin Austermuhle (@maustermuhle) October 10, 2018
The Jealous campaign is right to say that Marylanders are displeased with Trump, though. Only 41 percent of voters approve of the job he’s doing.
