Posted on 09/04/24
| News Source: FOX45
With just under nine weeks until Election Day, Angela Alsobrooks has an edge over Larry Hogan in Maryland’s U.S. Senate race, but a swath of undecided voters are up for grabs, according to a new Gonzales Poll.
Alsobrooks, the current Prince George’s County Executive, is looking to become Maryland’s first Black U.S. Senator. She’s running against Larry Hogan, the popular former two-term Republican governor.
Conducted between Aug. 24 and Aug. 30, the poll talked to 820 registered voters. If the election were held today, 46% of people said they would vote for Alsobrooks, while 41% said they would vote for Hogan. Across the state, 11% remain undecided and 1% said they would vote for someone other than Alsobrooks and Hogan. The margin of error is plus or minus 3.5%. This is a slight difference from the results of an AARP poll that showed Alsobrooks and Hogan tied at 46%.
“Hogan is that one-off politician who is viewed favorably by Democrats, Republicans, and independents,” Pollster Patrick Gonzales said. “But he’s up against an opponent who is herself exceptionally popular within her party base.”
The poll suggests that 72% of Democrats said they will vote for Alsobrooks. On the flip side, Hogan has 82% of GOP voters back him. In the Washington suburbs, closer to Alsobrooks’ jurisdiction, 64% of voters said they would vote for her. She also sees nearly 63% support in Baltimore City. However, Hogan finds support in the Baltimore suburbs, western Maryland, and the Eastern Shore. The largest swath of undecided voters is found in western Maryland, where 18% of voters indicated they had yet to pick a candidate.
Among Democrats, 60% view Alsobrooks favorably, while 23% remain neutral and 17% said they did not recognize her name. Among Republican voters, Alsobrooks remains unknown: 69% of respondents indicated they did not recognize her name.
In a state like Maryland though, where Democrats outnumber Republicans some two to one, Hogan needs to appeal to moderate Democrats and independents to see success. According to the poll, independents favor Hogan, where he is currently enjoying a 10-point lead over Alsobrooks.
“Twenty-one percent of Democrats say they’ll vote for Republican Hogan, not bad, but the former governor will need to bump this up about 10 points to win in November,” Gonzales said.
Favorability seems to be split when looking at the gender divide. Forty-five percent of women have a favorable view of Alsobrooks, while 50% of women view Hogan favorably. Men, however, appear to like Hogan more right now; 51% of men said they have a favorable view of Hogan, while 35% of men had the same opinion of Alsobrooks. Nonetheless, Alsobrooks appears to have more growth opportunities among men, with 36% indicating they didn’t recognize her name, while only 2% of men said the same thing about Hogan.
Black voters have a much more unfavorable view of Hogan than Alsobrooks. The poll shows 19% of Black voters view Hogan unfavorably, while only 1% of Black voters view Alsobrooks unfavorably. She is seeing a 63% favorable view from Black voters, while 47% view Hogan favorably.
For both Alsobrooks and Hogan, the campaign underscores how realistic it is that the road to control of U.S. Senate runs through Maryland. Hogan maintains that he is an independent-minded leader who hasn’t been afraid to stand up to Donald Trump and will continue to stand up to the national Republicans if necessary.
“No one in America stood up to his party more than I did. I’ve been the leading voice of opposition to Donald Trump and the MAGA movement and I think I can continue to stand up and move things in the right direction,” Hogan explained during a recent FOX45 News interview. “I think being in that middle position is exactly what we desperately need.”
I’m more concerned about red, white and blue than just the red versus blue. My opponent wants to make it just about parties; take the names and the records and positions out of it. I’m going to go out there and continue to talk about the issues that people care about, Hogan said.
Alsobrooks has kept the control of the U.S. senate at the center of her campaign messaging. She maintains that voters can’t trust Hogan, and because he was recruited by top Republicans leaders – like Mitch McConnell [which is something Hogan denies, arguing his wife convinced him to run] – he would be a vote for the GOP agenda if elected.
Mitch McConnell said that Maryland, Montana, Ohio and Pennsylvania were the four states that he wanted to flip and hope that the Republicans would gain the majority in the Senate, and he said Larry Hogan was his top recruit to make this happen, Alsobrooks said.
“This election is about the future and the kind of future that we want, where we have economic opportunity and continue to build through things like the Inflation Reduction Act or the Bipartisan Infrastructure bill. This is a forward-looking, hopeful, optimistic future and I love what Vice President Harris has said is that we can choose joy,” Alsobrooks said during a recent interview with FOX45 News. “We can choose a future that we all will share in where we are not divided and where hate is not celebrated.”
Early voting in Maryland is scheduled to run from Oct. 24 through Oct. 31. Election Day is Nov. 5.