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With just six weeks until Election Day, a new poll of Maryland voters indicates Democrat Angela Alsobrooks is ahead of Republican Larry Hogan in a critical Senate race.
The poll, released Thursday by the Washington Post and the University of Maryland, finds Prince George’s County Executive Alsobrooks has a double-digit lead over former Gov. Larry Hogan.
According to the poll, 51% of likely voters back Alsobrooks, compared to 40% of likely voters who said they’ll vote for Hogan.
For more on the findings, WTOP anchors Shawn Anderson and Anne Kramer talked with Emily Guskin, deputy polling director at The Washington Post.
The transcript below has been lightly edited for clarity.
Anne Kramer: Tell us what the poll actually found. What does it look like between Alsobrooks and Hogan?
Emily Guskin: An 11 percentage point lead for Alsobrooks over Hogan among likely voters in the state of Maryland, which is a pretty comfortable margin, but Hogan still has some space there. He’s very popular in the state of Maryland, just as popular as Alsobrooks is now. When we polled back in March, she had pretty low favorability ratings. A lot of people just didn’t know who she was, and she’s improved on that as she’s introduced herself to the voters in the state of Maryland, and right now, she and Hogan are both about as popular in the state, and she has grown in that favorability rating that has also grown in support for her election in November.
Shawn Anderson: A top line number of 51% for Alsobrooks, 40% for Larry Hogan. I seem to remember the first time Larry Hogan ran for governor, there wasn’t much polling putting him within 10 points of the Democrat at the time, Anthony Brown. So you’re talking about the popularity ratings being equal, there is some room from Larry Hogan to make things up, isn’t there?
Emily Guskin: Totally, he was a comeback kid once before, and he could do this again. One of the big things though, that we’re looking at is control of the U.S. Senate. And Maryland voters are paying attention, and they are about two to one Democratic in that state. So we asked Maryland voters, the likely voters, what their preference was for the outcome of the U.S. Senate elections in November, whether they wanted a Senate controlled by Democrats or one controlled by Republicans, and by 60% to 32% those likely voters in Maryland said that they preferred Democrats, and they’re looking at this election with those glasses on. Larry Hogan might be popular, they might like him, but he does have that ‘R’ after his name.
Anne Kramer: Emily, talk to us about what other questions the poll hit on this time. You asked likely voters about their preferences for president.
Emily Guskin: It’s an election year. We know that Maryland usually votes for the Democrat, but we want to test that anyway. We asked likely voters in Maryland who they were going to support if the election were held today between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump: 63% of likely voters in the state of Maryland support Harris, 31% support Trump.
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