An array of polls released this past week have changed the landscape of the election cycle for candidates running for statewide office, showing significant gains by Lt. Gov. Michael Steele on Rep. Ben Cardin and a competitive race between Baltimore Mayor Martin O’Malley and Gov. Robert Ehrlich.
Those outcomes were unimaginable weeks ago, when both Democrats held sizable leads over their opponents, and capitalized on both voter anger felt nationwide toward Republican candidates and the traditionally dependable Democratic voters in the state.
The (Baltimore) Sun released a poll Wednesday showing Ehrlich trailing O’Malley by just one percentage point, well within the poll’s 3.5 percent margin of error. A Rasmussen poll taken on Oct. 31 also put O’Malley ahead by just one with a 4.5 percent margin.
Both polls show a drastic change from a Washington Post poll released Sunday gave O’Malley a whopping 10-point lead with a 3 percent margin of error. The most recent polling data was a surprise for many race-watchers, who expected O’Malley to maintain a sizable lead against Ehrlich through election day.
In the U.S. Senate race, the same Sun poll found Steele closing in on Cardin, having narrowed the gap to six points, but the Rasmussen poll and a Reuters/Zogby poll released yesterday found Cardin ahead only by five. The Sunday Post poll gave Cardin an 11-point lead.
Local political experts have been skeptical about the somewhat erratic polling over the past week, but some surprising endorsements have gone to Steele and Ehrlich, and history professor Howard Smead said the most recent data likely suggests a shift among voters.
“Polls always mean something to some degree. You have to just see which poll it is,” Smead said. “The best way to judge polls is over a long period of time and then you’ll get an indication.”
Smead would not give too much significance to any one poll, but said the numbers could suggest a change.
“If you take all the recent polls and put them together [you may] get a reasonable idea of where things stand, you might see trend,” he said.
Most experts agree that putting too much importance on polls is risky because they don’t indicate the actual voter turnout, but campaigns often use the media polls and polls they conduct on their own to determine strategy.
“For O’Malley to win, he’s going to have to be slightly outside the margin of error to cover the get-out-the-vote factor,” Smead said, and cautioned that Democrats may have been a bit too comfortable with their success in the polls for much of the year.
“It seems to be that the Democrats have been overall, at least rhetorically, patting themselves on the back,” he said. “If I were a Democrat I would never ever be over-confident in an election in this country, unless they can bring FDR back.”
The assertion that Democrats in the state have been coasting was one of the main arguments The Post made when it endorsed Ehrlich for reelection, writing that O’Malley has been “nursing a lead” and has been “cautious” in his campaigning. The Post further cited the value of a two-party system in endorsing the incumbent Republican governor in an overwhelmingly Democratic state.
Endorsements and polls aside, pundits still point to voters in the black community as a key to winning. The Post reported that the major difference between its poll and the one taken in the Sun was The Post’s included a larger number of black voters, with whom O’Malley has overwhelming support.
The Post poll found that black voters supported Cardin and O’Malley by more than 80 percent over their Republican opponents.
“The hidden factor in the Steele race is the race vote. Curry’s endorsement of Steele? That was important,” Smead said, referring to the support thrown to Steele on Monday by former Prince George’s county executive Wayne Curry and five black county council members.
Smead cautioned, however, that history has shown “somewhere between 2 and 2.5 [percent of] people who say they’ll vote black, don’t.”
Both campaigns are likely watching the polls this week, because today Cardin and O’Malley plan to elicit the help of Democratic Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) for the second time at a Bowie State University rally, a nearby historically black college.
Ehrlich, too is wooing the black vote, dropping in to NAACP forums, black churches and barbershops in downtown Baltimore several times this week.
Contact reporter Owen Praskievicz at praskieviczdbk@gmail.com.
