Well, it would appear that things seem to be tightening up a bit there in the People’s Republic of Maryland, but it’s not clear, exactly, why that might be. Because we now have a poll that was recently leaked to ‘The Daily Caller’ which shows that the gubernatorial race there has become extremely close. And by extremely close I mean that it appears to have narrowed to the point where there are now only 2 points, 46 to 44, that separate Democrat Lieutenant Governor Anthony Brown and Republican small businessman, Larry Hogan.
In Maryland, the bluest of blue states, Democrats have a 2 to 1 registration advantage, but Gonzales finds this race is well within the 3.5 percent margin of error of its survey, commissioned by the Maryland GOP. Independents appear to breaking for Hogan, 46 to 32, and he’s receiving 89 percent support from his party while Brown is pulling only 73 percent of Democrats. Barry has campaigned for Brown, and Hitlery Clinton will be going to the state this week. Chris Christie has campaigned with Hogan and is scheduled to return this week as well.
And as far as what the top issues might be for voter, taxes come in first at 32 percent, with the economy and jobs coming in a close second at 29 percent. Maryland’s unemployment rate has been bucking the national trend and is now higher than the national average, sitting at 6.4 percent. In the past 8 years, when Brown served as Lieutenant Governor to Democrat Marty O’Malley, devout socialist and 2016 presidential wannabe, the state saw 40 tax increases on everything from gasoline to the taxing of rain.
As I said this particular survey was commissioned by the Maryland Republican Party, which might cause some to question it’s accuracy and outcome, as well as to ask just what the internals of this most recent survey might have consisted of. It’s also true that polls conducted by Gonzales this cycle have tended to show the race tighter than others, but as even the Washington Post noted, Gonzales "does not have a partisan track record." Which would seem to add some level of credibility to the survey’s outcome.
With those caveats out of the way, let’s assume for a minute that this survey is pretty close to being accurate. This would represent a nine point swing from a week ago, when, according to the RealClearPolitics poll average, Hogan was down by 11 points. How could this be possible? I mean, what has happened in the last week? Well, for one thing, Barry "Almighty", not welcome in most, if not all, red states, campaigned for Brown in Maryland, where, you may remember, crowds began streaming out during his speech, leaving empty bleachers behind.
So could it be that Barry is now such a drag on Democrats that he even hurts them in the bluest of blue states like Maryland? That’s one possibility. Another possibility is presented by the fact that New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, the head of the Republican Governor’s Association, has also been stumping hard for Hogan, of late. Now whether or not these events have anything to do with one another is unclear. But it seems unlikely that Christie would be visiting Maryland so often, so late, unless there was sufficient reason for doing so.
There has also been a focus on race in this race with the Maryland Democratic Party, like that in Georgia and North Carolina, mailing out some disgusting fliers. These fliers encourage blacks to make Brown the state’s first black governor, going so far as to equate him to Martin Luther King and Barry, while, like in Georgia, trying to tie Republicans to segregation and Ferguson, Missouri. Gonzales found the black vote breaking 87 to 5 for Brown. The survey was conducted by Gonzales between October 20 and October 24 with 822 likely voters.
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