MD-GOV: Hogans approval ratings sky-high; Democrats stronger among women, millenials
Gov. Larry Hogan remains highly popular in Maryland, according to a new poll, despite being a Republican in an overwhelmingly blue state in an election year when Democrats hope to capitalize on opposition to President Trump.
Sixty-nine percent of Marylanders approve of the way Hogan is handling his job, an increase from 61 percent in February, according to a Goucher College poll released Tuesday. It’s his highest approval rating in the Goucher poll since fall 2016.
He receives praise across party lines: from 65 percent of registered Democrats, 64 percent of independents and 81 percent of Republicans.
Hogan is vying to become the second GOP governor in 60 years to be reelected in Maryland, where registered Democrats outnumber registered Republicans 2 to 1. He has tried hard to avoid a partisan label and has repeatedly distanced himself from Trump and Republicans in Congress.
So far, the strategy seems to have worked. Seventy percent of Marylanders disapprove of Trump, nearly the opposite of Hogan’s approval rating, according to the Goucher poll. But 47 percent of Marylanders polled say Hogan has distanced himself “about the right amount” from Trump. Twenty-seven percent say he’s distanced himself too little, and 9 percent say too much.
A 53 percent majority think the state is heading in the right direction; 28 percent say the state is on the wrong track.
“If I were Larry Hogan, I’d probably be doing somersaults,” Todd Eberly, a political scientist at St. Mary’s College of Maryland, said after looking at the poll results. “If there’s going to be a blue wave, I think Hogan is in the best position he could be in a Democratic state if you were going to withstand that wave.”
Mileah Kromer, director of the Goucher polling team, cautioned that there remain plenty of undecided voters and — with the wide-open Democratic gubernatorial primary still nine weeks away — a long road to November.
“What probably concerns them is the fact that approval isn’t necessarily the same thing as support for reelection,” Kromer said. “We’re really far out. It’s not like he can pack it in.”
If Hogan were pitted now against one of the contenders in June’s Democratic primary, between 44 and 47 percent of likely voters say they would choose Hogan, according to the poll. Between 22 and 27 percent of likely voters say they are undecided.
Hogan holds a 44 percent to 31 percent lead against Prince George’s County Executive Rushern L. Baker III, the Democratic front-runner in other recent polls. He leads by an identical margin against former NAACP president Ben Jealous, who narrowly trailed Baker in this weekend’s Western Maryland Democratic straw poll .
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