A new poll out Wednesday shows Prince George’s County Executive Angela Alsobrooks, a Democrat, continuing to lead former Gov. Larry Hogan, a Republican, in the race to represent Maryland in the U.S. Senate, with nearly all likely voters saying their minds are made up.
The poll, from the University of Maryland Baltimore County, finds 48% of likely voters say they plan to vote for Alsobrooks, compared with 39% for Hogan. Only 5% say they are undecided. The poll had a margin of error of just over 3%.
After eight years as governor, Hogan is familiar to most voters polled, and he remains popular, with 53% of likely voters saying they have a favorable opinion of him. But Mileah Kromer, who oversaw the poll as director of the UMBC Institute of Politics, said Hogan’s party affiliation is working against him.
“Anybody who's paid attention to this race will tell you that the race is not just between Angela Alsobrooks and Larry Hogan, but the race is also between Angela Alsobrooks and a Republican control of the U.S. Senate,” Kromer said. “The average voter, the average Maryland voter, the average American voter oftentimes don't think about control of the Senate when they are casting a ballot, but this time in Maryland, it has become a really big issue.”
Alsobrooks’ campaign has repeatedly reminded voters that the outcome of her race could determine which party controls the U.S. Senate. And that messaging may be having an impact. According to the poll, 54% of likely voters want Democrats to control the chamber.
“To get that amount of people to be paying attention to something like the institutional constructs of the power of the Senate is a bigger leap than what the issues that people typically think about,” Kromer said. “Normally people vote for a candidate for issues like education, issues like economic concerns, those types of things.”
Only 14% of Democrats polled said they plan to vote for Hogan. When Hogan won his races for governor, it’s estimated that about 25-30% of registered Democrats voted for him, Kromer said. To win this time, he needs those Democratic votes.
The poll also shows that Alsobrooks has particularly strong support among women and among Black voters, with 53% of women and 77% of Black voters saying they plan to cast their ballot for her.
Hogan’s last two statewide victories were built on “support from moderate and conservative Democrats, closing the gender gap and earning really robust — for Republicans — support among Black voters, who make up a pretty large percentage of Maryland's electorate,” Kromer said. He would need to recapture that support to win again.