Larry Hogan Starts Off Strong in Maryland Senate Race
‘We expect Hogan’s popularity to erode further during this Presidential election year as the implications of his candidacy would have on the balance of power in the Senate,’ a Democratic pollster writes.
A new set of polls out of Maryland suggest that Governor Hogan is entering the race for Senate in an advantageous position, but that his favorability is expected to sink in the general election.
A survey released to Punchbowl by Mr. Hogan’s campaign yesterday made waves because it found that Mr. Hogan leads two likely Democratic candidates running for one of the state’s two Senate seats.
The survey, conducted by Ragnar Research Partners, found that Mr. Hogan leads Representative David Trone 49 percent to 33 percent and county executive Angela Alsobrooks 52 percent to 29 percent.
Mr. Hogan’s lead was despite the fact that, according to the same survey, 54 percent of respondents preferred Democrats in Congress over Republicans and just 31 percent preferred Republicans.
Working to Mr. Hogan’s advantage in this internal poll is the fact that he has near universal name recognition as the former governor of the state, while just over half of voters had heard of Mr. Trone.
Firing back, Mr. Trone’s campaign has released a new survey to Politico, conducted by Hickman Analytics, showing Mr. Trone in the lead in the Democratic primary — ahead of Ms. Alsobrooks 52 percent to 31 percent. It also found that most Democratic primary voters, or 52 percent, see him as the most electable candidate.
“Despite an avalanche of almost totally favorable publicity over the last two weeks, the favorable popularity rating of former governor Larry Hogan among Democratic primary voters is double digits lower than it was eleven months ago and his unfavorable rating is up the same amount,” a memo accompanying the survey reads.
The pollster added “We expect Hogan’s popularity to erode further during this Presidential election year as the implications of his candidacy would have on the balance of power in the Senate.”
To this end, Axios reports that Governor Moore is being tapped by national Democrats to help speed up any dent Democrats can make in Mr. Hogan’s polling numbers.
While Mr. Hogan was a popular governor in Maryland, it will be an uphill battle for any Republican in a statewide federal election in a presidential election year.
In 2020, President Biden carried Maryland, defeating president Trump 65 percent to 32 percent. If Mr. Hogan is to win, he’ll likely have to outperform the likely GOP nominee, Mr. Trump, by nearly 20 points.
