Post-UMD Poll: Alsobrooks Holds Her Lead in U.S. Senate Race
Many Voters Who Rate Hogan Highly as Governor Don’t Support Sending Him to Congress
Democrat Angela Alsobrooks maintained her double-digit lead over Republican opponent Larry Hogan in the race to fill Maryland’s open U.S. Senate seat, a key contest in determining which party controls the chamber, according to a new poll from The Washington Post and the University of Maryland’s Center for Democracy and Civic Engagement (CDCE).
Fifty-two percent of Maryland likely voters polled Oct. 17-22 said they’d vote for the Prince George’s County executive compared with 40% who said they support the former governor Hogan and 4% who said they’d vote for Libertarian Mike Scott. Results were nearly identical to a September Post-UMD poll in which Alsobrooks led 51 percent to 40 percent.
“Given the ad volume over the last few weeks, I'm somewhat surprised that the overall margin is about the same,” CDCE Director and government and politics Professor Michael Hanmer said. “Of course, there is still a lot of time between now and the election, so things could certainly change.”
Though registered voters more frequently cited the economy (52%), than abortion (44%), the latter issue is playing a significant role in the race. It’s among the most closely watched—and most expensive—contests in the nation, as Republicans hope to recapture the chamber and see this as a rare opportunity to win in deep-blue Maryland.
“I think the messaging from Angela Alsobrooks about the balance of power in the U.S. Senate has resonated, while Larry Hogan's messaging about being an independent voice has not. The national trends and stark differences between the parties seem to be playing a role,” Hanmer said.
Forty-five percent of registered voters think Hogan would do a better job with the economy than Alsobrooks, compared to 36% who said she would do a better job. But Alsbrooks bested Hogan by 11 percentage points on the question of who would do a better job with health care, and by 27 points on who would do a better job handling abortion.
Compared to the September poll, which found that 47% of registered voters are “not sure of how (Hogan) will handle” the issue of abortion should he be elected to the Senate, now just 40% of registered voters say they are unsure of how he’d handle the issue.
Twenty-three percent of registered voters in the October poll said they think Hogan would mainly support abortion rights as a senator, while 31% said he would mainly support abortion restrictions.
According to the new poll, about 7 in 10 registered voters approve of the way Hogan performed as governor. But likely voters are more divided by party lines in October 2024 than they were in October 2018, when a Post-UMD poll found that Hogan had support from 35% of Democrats when running against Democrat Ben Jealous to be re-elected governor.
This October, Hogan has support from just 17% of Democrats, and holds a narrow seven-point edge over Alsobrooks with independent voters. By comparison, Hogan had a 43-point lead over Jealous in capturing independents’ vote in 2018.
“It is very interesting that Hogan retains strong marks for his time as governor, even as many Democrats and independents who voted for him are not planning to do so in this Senate race,” Hanmer said.
This article by Rachael Grahame originally appeared in Maryland Today
Photo by Karl Merton Ferron/The Baltimore Sun/Tribune News Service via Getty Images
Published on Fri, Oct 25, 2024 - 10:04AM