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Former President Donald Trump and Maryland Governor Larry Hogan have thrown their support behind different Republican candidates to be the state's next governor, with polls suggesting a potentially close primary race.
Hogan, an anti-Trump Republican who has served as Maryland's governor since 2015, has urged GOP voters in his state to back his former secretary of commerce Kelly Schulz. The governor, who has readily criticized the former president, is term-limited and cannot seek reelection. Meanwhile, Trump has endorsed Dan Cox, a member of Maryland's House of Delegates who first took office in 2019.
With Maryland's primary set for Tuesday, recent polling has shown neither Republican candidate with close to majority support in the field of four contenders. House of Delegates Member Robin Ficker and attorney Joe Werner are also in the running, but Schulz and Cox appear to be the clear front-runners for their party's nomination.
The most recent public polling for the race was carried out by Goucher College from June 15 to 19. Cox led the field by a relatively narrow margin of 3 points—within the survey's margin of error. The Trump-backed candidate had the support of 25 percent of likely Republican voters, compared with 22 percent who supported Schulz. Werner came in a distant third at 3 percent, followed by Ficker with just 2 percent.
Notably, 44 percent of likely GOP voters said they were still undecided, while 47 percent said they could still change their mind. The poll surveyed 414 likely voters and had a margin of error of plus or minus 4.8 percent.
Previous polling by The Baltimore Sun showed Schulz ahead of Cox. The Hogan-backed Republican had the support of 27 percent of likely GOP voters, while her Trump-backed rival was backed by 21 percent. Werner and Ficker trailed with single-digit support.
The survey was conducted from May 27 to June 2 among 428 likely voters. It had a margin of error of plus or minus 4.7 percent.
Furthermore, whether a Trump-backed candidate can win office in a state where the former president received less than half as many votes as President Joe Biden did in 2020 seems to be somewhat of a long shot. Trump garnered just 32 percent of the vote in Maryland in the last presidential election, compared with Biden's 65 percent.
The results were similar in 2016 when Trump won about 34 percent of the vote and former Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton garnered 60 percent. Hogan managed to win reelection by a double-digit margin, however, in 2018. The Republican governor was backed by 55.4 percent of Maryland's voters, and his Democratic challenger had the support of just 43.5 percent.
Goucher's recent poll showed that 84 percent of Democratic voters would not even consider voting for Cox in the general election when they were told he was backed by Trump. Just 9 percent said they would consider backing the Republican.
Comparatively, Schulz fared significantly better. Just under half (49 percent) of Democrats said they wouldn't consider voting for the Hogan-backed candidate. Twenty-three percent said they would consider backing her, while 11 percent responded that "it depends."
"Given the political demographics of the state, Republican candidates must earn around a quarter of Democratic votes to win statewide office," Mileah Kromer,
director of the Sarah T. Hughes Center for Politics, said in a press release with the Goucher poll.
"Our polling suggests that the Republican primary race is competitive between Cox and Schulz, but that Schulz is in the best position to be competitive against the Democratic nominee in the general election," Kromer said.
Hogan has argued that Trump's influence is diminishing within the GOP.
Appearing Sunday on Meet the Press, he said, "I'm on the [Republican Governors Association] executive committee. There were five different governors where Trump was attacking them. All of them won [their 2022 primaries]."
Hogan, who like Trump is weighing a 2024 presidential run, went on to say that he's "hopeful" the former president will not make another White House bid.
"I do think there are an awful lot of people that I would call the exhausted majority of Americans who are frustrated with the far left and the far right," he said. "They want to see us go in a different direction."
About the writer
Jason Lemon is a Senior Politics Editor at Newsweek based in Brooklyn, New York. Prior to taking on the editor role, Jason's reporting focused ... Read more