With control of the U.S. Senate in play, voters in deep-blue Maryland favor Republican Larry Hogan by double digits over potential Democratic rivals, according to a Washington Post-University of Maryland poll.
The former governor left office with high job-approval ratings and is better known than those competitors, but he faces a crosscurrent Democrats hope to exploit: The poll found Maryland voters said by a 20-point margin that they prefer Democratic control of the U.S. Senate.
Hogan’s surprise entrance into the race last month upended what had been largely seen as a contest between Rep. David Trone (D-Md.) and Prince George’s County Executive Angela Alsobrooks (D). The Post-UMD poll finds that if the general election were held today, voters say they would support Hogan over Trone, 49 percent to 37 percent; and Hogan over Alsobrooks, 50 percent to 36 percent.
The poll finds Trone with a narrow lead in the primary race for the reliably blue seat vacated by retiring Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.): 34 percent of registered Democrats support Trone while 27 percent prefer Alsobrooks. The primary race remains wide open despite Trone’s spending of more than $23 million to Alsobrooks’s $2 million. Nearly 4 in 10 Democratic voters — 39 percent — haven’t yet picked a primary candidate.
