Former Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan made a splash in early February when he announced he’d be running for U.S. Senate in a state that hasn’t had a Republican U.S. senator in 37 years. A poll out Wednesday is indicating that trend could change.
Hogan, who defied the odds in the blue state of Maryland by winning two consecutive terms as governor, has firm leads against top Democratic candidates David Trone and Angela Alsobrooks for the Senate seat left vacant by the retirement of Democratic Sen. Ben Cardin, according to new polling by the Washington Post and the University of Maryland.
Scott Clement, polling director for the Post, joined WTOP’s Dimitri Sotis and Brennan Haselton to go in depth on the poll’s findings.
Scott Clement: We did a survey of 1,004 Maryland registered voters, including 525 registered Democrats, on that primary vote question. David Trone leads Angela Alsobrooks, 34% to 27% when people are asked who they’d vote for May. but the real leading candidate is no opinion — 39%. So, this is a very malleable race. And it’s really not clear how it’s going to shake out. There’s a massive money advantage as well, with Trone spending more than $23 million compared with Alsobrooks’ $2 million.
Dimitri Sotis: Very interesting. So, you’ve kind of given us an idea of what’s happening on the Democratic side. But, suffice it to say, the big news coming out of this is Larry Hogan’s big leads when facing either Trone or Alsobrooks.
Scott Clement: That’s right. Our poll found Hogan had roughly 50% support in each of those matchups, whereas Trone is at 37% against Hogan and Alsobrooks at 36%. Those are 12 to 14 percentage point advantages. Very unusual to see a Republican leading by that except one named Hogan as he won two terms.
On a different question in the poll, which didn’t name any candidates, it just asked people, “which party do you want to control the U.S. Senate?” Fifty-five percent said they want Democrats to control the Senate. Thirty-five percent want Republicans to control the Senate. So that’s one reason that Larry Hogan has good grounds to say he’s still an underdog — this is a very heavily Democratic state.
Brennan Haselton: Is there traditionally a time in the campaign cycle where we start to see the races sort of coalescing a little bit more, giving us a clearer picture of who the choices might be?
Scott Clement: Fall is the easy answer — September, October. These Democratic candidates aren’t very well known. But once Democrats choose their candidate, there will surely be a big effort to try to introduce them to the electorate or parts of the electorate that don’t know them yet. We found that nearly half don’t know about David Trone. More than half don’t know about Alsobrooks. … We know the Senate is up for grabs this year, and that this could be a competitive race, but many voters haven’t paid much attention. So, people are going to have to weigh in on that. And Hogan will have to defend himself and explain why he, as a Republican, how he would lead as a Republican and how he would not just become a rubber stamp for the party. I’m sure that’s going to be a critical thing for him to explain in a Democratic state.
Dimitri Sotis: Scott, just seconds left and I’m sorry, I’m a bit like a dog with a bone on this. These Hogan results — why? Why is Hogan doing so well?
Scott Clement: He’s incredibly popular. He set records as governor for high approval ratings, and those still show through in this poll. Sixty-four percent of registered voters have a favorable view of him, including six in 10 Democrats. He’s just really well liked. This election is going to put to the test how much Maryland voters really do like Larry Hogan.
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