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MD-Gov: Slim Lead for O'Malley

by: James L.

Mon Jul 19, 2010 at 12:25 AM EDT


Public Policy Polling (7/10-12, Maryland voters):

Martin O'Malley (D-inc): 45
Bob Ehrlich (R): 42
Undecided: 12
(MoE: ±4.1%)

This poll is already a few days out of the oven, but we're clearing out some older inventory from the SSP Bake Shop at bargain prices.

On balance, I'd say this poll is pretty good news for Ehrlich. The former Governor is enjoying stronger support from his own party than O'Malley is, losing only 6% of the Republican vote to O'Malley and taking 21% of Democrats. O'Malley only has a 60% favorable rating from his own party, which doesn't bode particularly well for ginning up base excitement in the fall. Moreover, PPP's likely voter universe supported Obama over McCain by 59-36, meaning the needle barely budged from 2008. If anything, this could possibly be a more optimistic snapshot of the 2010 electorate than will actually be the case. In O'Malley's favor, at least Ehrlich isn't universally beloved by any means -- his favorables are running perfectly even with his unfavorables at 39-39.

On a brighter note, at least Barbara Mikulski is slamming the competition:

Barbara Mikulski (D-inc): 58
James Rutledge (R): 30
Undecided: 12

Barbara Mikulski (D-inc): 59
Eric Wargotz (R): 27
Undecided: 14
(MoE: ±4.1%)
James L. :: MD-Gov: Slim Lead for O'Malley
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MD-Gov: Slim Lead for O'Malley | 34 comments
6% of the Obama voters not showing up is not overly optimistic
It's in the "reasonable" ballpark.  Anything over 5% starts getting into the "that's a helluva lot" ballpark.

The Republicans got their best possible candidate here, which makes it competitive, but O'Malley will only lose if he screws it up somehow.

Looks like Sen Barb will move up
I think I remember, for a while she was the most senior Senator on the Dem side without a Chair.  I believe she has a Chair now, but given how the Dem caucus will change for 2011 and beyond (Kennedy & Byrd's deaths, a few Dem retirements), she is definitely moving up the seniority ladder and looks to have a VERY comfortable seat now and into the future.
[ Parent ]
dodd, dorgan, i'll assume not lincoln's
committee chairs all seem open...she'd probably prefer Dodd's, but Tim Johnson might get it?

18, Dem, CA-14 (home) CA-09 (college, next year). social libertarian, economic liberal, fiscal conservative.   Everybody should put age and CD here. :)
[ Parent ]
She only chairs a couple of subcommittees
It's pretty ridiculous that Senators who have been in office half her tenure have chairmanships, but she's been left out.

One interesting bit of trivia: once she wins another term and starts serving it, she will become the longest-serving female Senator ever, surpassing Margaret Chase Smith's four terms.

[ Parent ]
wasn't Mikulski elected in 92?
93-99, 99-05, 05-11...isn't that only three terms that she's completed so far?

21, dude, RI-01 (registered) IL-01 (college)
please help Japan. click "donate funds" in upper right and then "Japan Earthquake and Pacific Tsunami." http://www.redcross.org/
[ Parent ]
'86. And she'll still be behind others on her committees
Appropriations (Inouye/Leahy/Harkin)
Health (Harkin)
Intelligence (Feinstein/Rockefeller/Wyden)
[ Parent ]
Ah, I see.
I must have gotten confused because 1992 was the Year of the Woman.

21, dude, RI-01 (registered) IL-01 (college)
please help Japan. click "donate funds" in upper right and then "Japan Earthquake and Pacific Tsunami." http://www.redcross.org/
[ Parent ]
Which chair?
As best I can tell, she is only on three committees, and their chairs aren't going anywhere yet.  (Well, unless Feinstein somehow considered Rules an upgrade from Intelligence, and Schumer freed it up.)  She's basically waiting for Harkin (or Inouye and Leahy) to retire.
[ Parent ]
23 point spread
He won Maryland by 25.
[ Parent ]
He won by 26, according to the Kos map
Ifi it is between 25% and 26%, that means an Obama voter stay home rate of about 5%.
[ Parent ]
O'Malley should be fine
The Democrats should come home at the end of the day.  
Coming Home Is The Key
Although be warned that there are a lot of "Democrats" in Maryland who only register that way to vote in primaries in local/state elections in areas where there are generally no GOP primaries of note. And most of them are already locked into voting for Ehrlich.

Another bad sign for MO'M - a fair number of signs and bumper stickers for Ehrlich paired with ones for downballot Democrats.  (I suppose that's good news in that it suggests we're not seeing some massive GOP wave and that Ehrlich if he wins would have fairly weak coattails.)

36, M, Democrat, MD-03

[ Parent ]
are these signs
in areas with a Dem enrollment advantage but a GOP tendency at the top of the ticket? or is it, say, MontCo? the latter concerns me much more.

21, dude, RI-01 (registered) IL-01 (college)
please help Japan. click "donate funds" in upper right and then "Japan Earthquake and Pacific Tsunami." http://www.redcross.org/
[ Parent ]
In And Around B'more
I haven't been off the interstates in the DC burbs recently. Ehrlich is courting MoCo hard and I'm curious to see if that's bearing any fruit. (Not that signage is a good metric; Ehlrich would win in a landslide if it were.)

Baltimore County - Towson and Catonsville - is where I've seen this most pronounced. Those places are swing-y areas in close elections.  

36, M, Democrat, MD-03

[ Parent ]
as long as BaltCo
doesn't go strongly against O'Malley, I have hope. without MontCo, Pgco, and Baltimore city, Obama's 25-point victory would have been a 2-point loss. In other words, if O'Malley pulls off a standard Democratic performance there and campaigns in other parts of the state to avoid getting blown out, I think he'll be fine. I hope, anyway.

21, dude, RI-01 (registered) IL-01 (college)
please help Japan. click "donate funds" in upper right and then "Japan Earthquake and Pacific Tsunami." http://www.redcross.org/
[ Parent ]
Ehrlich wouldn't have coattails if he won
Aside from the fact that he'd top out at about 51-52% of the vote, the Maryland Republican Party is a joke. They failed to find anyone to run against AG Doug Gansler, ended up with a weak field against Comptroller Peter Franchot (one of them is an 18-year-old Paulite - I really hope he wins the primary, just for comedic value), and left a lot of state legislative seats unopposed.
[ Parent ]
Remember even in 1994 Republicans couldn't win this one......
It was an open seat in 1994, and still the GOP couldn't win.  Of course Ehrich is night-and-day superior to right-wing extremist Ellen Sauerbrey, but that's offset on our side by having a personally uncontroversial incumbent this time around, as opposed to having to hold an open seat.

Really there's nothing objectionable about O'Malley, it's just the anti-Democratic sentiment that's out there.  The problem Maryland Republicans have is that they need massive numbers of Democrats to be hostile to their own party's Governor who really hasn't committed any kind of fireable offense, either personally or politically, and that kind of hostility is just not likely to materialize.

43, male, Indian-American, Democrat, VA-10

[ Parent ]
Methinks...
Democrat - 47%
GOP - 30%
Independent - 23%

O'Malley - 83/10/48 = 53%
Elrilch - 17/90/52 = 47%

Mikulski - 87/15/60 = 60%
Wargotz - 13/85/40 = 40%

For daily political commentary, visit me at http://polibeast.blogspot.com/ and http://twitter.com/polibeast

Who?
I'd be quite surprised if Wargotz or the GOP Senate nominee got 40% of the vote. E.J. Pipkin could at least self-fund and had a higher profile than any of the various GOPers running for U.S. Senate this time.  

36, M, Democrat, MD-03
[ Parent ]
This is true
And, in all fairness to Sen. Mikulski, her weakest electoral performance was in '86 w/ a 61%-39% margin over Reaganite Linda Chavez. My hunch, however, is, given Mikulski's facing her most anti-incumbent election cycle to date, "generic Republican" probably can net 40% here. Granted, that's probably the GOP's ceiling, but I'm not sure the environment's quite as breezy as in '86, amid Reagan's unpopularity, or '92/'04, on the coattails of Clinton and Kerry.  

For daily political commentary, visit me at http://polibeast.blogspot.com/ and http://twitter.com/polibeast
[ Parent ]
O'Malley
Is O'Malley really done anything that controversial?  He has struck me as center-left, but closer to the center than the left.

23, male, center-right cynical Republican, PA-7
Raised Sales Tax From 5% to 6%
That's about it, and that was nearly three years ago. I'd hate to think what the budget would look like had that not happened.

He's also presided over the de facto elimination of capital punishment in Maryland, but it's used so infrequently in the state (especially in the more Democrat-heavy jurisdictions) that it hardly matters.

The economy is tough everywhere, the budget's in bad shape as a consequence, and O'Malley is paying the price. That's pretty much it.  

36, M, Democrat, MD-03

[ Parent ]
Pssh.
the sales tax is 7% in RI and the sky hasn't fallen down on us. Doesn't Maryland have lots of upper middle class voters who have lots of money but understand that other people need it more than they do? Especially given the large Jewish population, surely their views on taxes are influenced by Tikkun Olam (more or less, helping the less fortunate)

21, dude, RI-01 (registered) IL-01 (college)
please help Japan. click "donate funds" in upper right and then "Japan Earthquake and Pacific Tsunami." http://www.redcross.org/
[ Parent ]
Yes, They Do.
Montgomery County has a lot of those people. You can also find a little of that mentality in the most upscale sections (esp. Roland Park and Mt. Washington) of Baltimore City.  

Perhaps because the Baltimore-area suburbs aren't as prosperous, and perhaps because they have a different cultural background, you don't see that nearly as much there. They complain a lot about taxes and tend to perceive that the government is taking their hard-earned money and giving it to undeserving Baltimore City residents, either the poor who'll spend it on crack or the yuppies who'll spend it on who-knows-what.  



36, M, Democrat, MD-03

[ Parent ]
Rhode Island
Using Rhode Island as an example of good government and having a good economy even in good times is a stretch.

23, male, center-right cynical Republican, PA-7
[ Parent ]
I didn't say that at all
all I'm saying is, we can still buy things without emptying out our wallets, 5->6% is hardly a big deal at all. (also, not sure about MD, but in RI some things like medicine and clothes are tax-exempt.)

21, dude, RI-01 (registered) IL-01 (college)
please help Japan. click "donate funds" in upper right and then "Japan Earthquake and Pacific Tsunami." http://www.redcross.org/
[ Parent ]
Sales tax
People do not get fired up about sales tax increases unless it is a 30 percent or higher increase.

23, male, center-right cynical Republican, PA-7
[ Parent ]
O'Malley's controversial action
being a governor in 2010.

21, dude, RI-01 (registered) IL-01 (college)
please help Japan. click "donate funds" in upper right and then "Japan Earthquake and Pacific Tsunami." http://www.redcross.org/
[ Parent ]
How dare he :)

[ Parent ]
The other thing hurting O'Malley
Is Erlich wasn't that unpopular when he was voted out - I believe he has a positive approval rating. He lost because of the Democratic wave that year. I don't think Erlich is perceived as having done that much wrong either.  
Time for Tommy Carcetti to call up Norman and get this straightened out!

Though actually  

NY-13, Democrat. Blog @ http://infinitefunction.wordpr...
I wouldn't have shed a tear
If Mikulski, who turns 74 tomorrow, had retired this year. Still, I'm glad she's safe.
She's a very strong liberal senator
but would presumably be replaced by a Democrat in almost any year's election in Maryland, barring the currently remote possibility of an unusually strong Republican candidate and unusually weak Democratic candidate, such as happened recently in Massachusetts.

"I'm not a member of any organized political party, I'm a Democrat!"
--  Will Rogers  
[ Parent ]
I have no quarrel with her voting record
or her position on any issue, but I don't think she is especially effective. She's been in Congress for 34 years (10 in the House and 24 in the Senate), and she's still an obscure back-bencher. Six more years won't change that.
[ Parent ]
MD-Gov: Slim Lead for O'Malley | 34 comments

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