Prince George’s County Executive Angela Alsobrooks (D) and former Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan (R) are tied in a new poll of what could be a closer-than-normal Maryland Senate race.
The AARP poll released Tuesday showed Alsobrooks and Hogan tied at 46 percent support each, with 7 percent of respondents undecided and 1 percent saying they plan to support another candidate. That’s considerably closer than the margins seen in the most recent major polls of the race, which have been sparse.
Although Maryland is one of the most liberal-leaning states in the country and likely to strongly vote for Vice President Harris in November — Harris leads in the poll by more than 30 points — Hogan was able to stay competitive thanks to support from outside just Republican respondents.
The former governor, who was elected to two terms and was one of the most popular governors in the country, leads among independents by 23 points, 55 percent to 32 percent. He also has more support from his own party than Alsobrooks has, with 83 percent of Republicans supporting Hogan but only 68 percent of Democrats backing Alsobrooks.
A quarter of Democratic respondents said they support Hogan.
Hogan is just ahead with voters 50 and older, up 2 points, while Alsobrooks leads among voters 18 to 49. But the older demographic appears to be more likely to vote, as it has tended to in other elections.
“Voters 50 and older are the biggest and most enthusiastic voting bloc in this election, and their votes will make the difference in the tight U.S. Senate race this year,” said Hank Greenberg, Maryland state director at AARP, in a release.
Not much polling has been conducted on the race, but one from a Democratic-affiliated firm in June found Alsobrooks leading by 11 points against Hogan just after the primary for the state occurred. She led by 10 points in an Emerson College poll from May, before she and Hogan became their respective parties’ nominees.
Hogan has given Republicans some hope of picking up a Senate seat in the solidly blue state as he has crafted a reputation as a moderate Republican. He has sought to create distance between himself and former President Trump and the rest of the national GOP.
He has emphasized his independence in ads and rejected Trump’s endorsement of his candidacy, saying he did not seek it and has “no interest” in it. But Democrats have attacked him as contributing to a possible Republican majority in the Senate and accused him of flip-flopping on issues like abortion.
The AARP poll showed both Hogan and Alsobrooks are viewed favorably, but Hogan has a slightly higher net favorability rating of 31 points to Alsobrooks’s 25 points. But one possible vulnerability for Hogan is his net favorability among the undecided voters is minus 12 points, while Alsobrooks’s is only minus 5 points.
The poll was conducted from Aug. 14 to 20 among 1,258 likely voters, including a demographically representative statewide sample of 600 likely voters, an oversample of 482 likely voters aged 50 and older and another oversample of 176 Black likely voters aged 50 and older.