Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan leads Democratic opponent Ben Jealous by 15 points in this year’s governor’s race, according to a Mason-Dixon poll released Friday.
Mr. Hogan, a Republican seeking re-election in the deep-blue state, was at 52 percent support and Mr. Jealous was at 37 percent. Two third-party candidates were at 1 percent apiece and 9 percent said they were undecided.
The survey was conducted Monday through Wednesday. The only scheduled debate between Mr. Hogan and Mr. Jealous in the race aired Monday evening.
Sixty-eight percent — including 55 percent of Democrats — said they approve of the job Mr. Hogan is doing.
Mr. Jealous, a former head of the NAACP, did lead Mr. Hogan among Democrats, 57 percent to 32 percent, but Mr. Hogan had the support of more than nine in 10 Republicans and 58 percent of independents in the poll.
Democrats have about a 2-to-1 registration advantage over Republicans in the state.
The Jealous campaign is banking that Democrats who might have stayed home in 2014 will turn out this year to express their anger at President Trump by voting out Mr. Hogan —though the Republican governor has kept his distance from the president.
The governor, first elected in 2014 in an upset over then-Lt. Gov. Anthony Brown, didn’t attend the 2016 Republican National Convention and said he wrote in his dad when he cast his ballot in the 2016 presidential election.
But Maryland hasn’t re-elected a Republican governor since the 1950s, so Mr. Hogan will have to buck history to win a second term in office.
The Jealous campaign said the poll suggests the Democrat is “closing the gap” after a recent Goucher College poll showed Mr. Hogan with a 22-point lead.
The Hogan campaign said it’s probably a sign of trouble for the Democrat if the Jealous campaign is cheering a poll that shows him down by 15 points.
The Mason-Dixon survey of 625 registered voters had a margin of error of “no more than” plus or minus 4 percentage points.
• David Sherfinski can be reached at dsherfinski@washingtontimes.com.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.