Ehrlich appears to be losing GOP traction

By John Wagner, Aaron C. Davis and Jon Cohen
Washington Post Staff Writers
Monday, October 25, 2010; 12:03 AM

Heading into the final week of his reelection bid, Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley holds a commanding lead over former governor Robert L. Ehrlich Jr., whose comeback campaign has failed to capitalize on continuing anxiety over the economy and anger at Washington, a Washington Post poll has found.

The poll shows O'Malley (D) ahead of Ehrlich (R) 54 to 40 percent among likely voters, despite majorities who rate Maryland's economy as not so good or poor and who say they are dissatisfied or angry with the federal government.

When Ehrlich entered the race in April, that discontent, which has bolstered Republicans elsewhere, appeared to be working for him. But while other GOP candidates have gained traction with an anti-tax, anti-incumbent message, the poll suggests that Ehrlich's case for returning him to power has fallen flat in heavily Democratic Maryland.

In a Post poll in May, more voters said they would trust Ehrlich than O'Malley to handle the state's economy, deficit and taxes, among the top issues in the race.

Now - after countless campaign appearances, scores of TV ads and three debates - those numbers have flipped. The new poll found that likely voters trust O'Malley more on the economy, 51 to 40 percent, and, by slightly smaller margins, on the budget and taxes.

Moreover, the percentage of voters with an unfavorable view of Ehrlich has jumped by 10 percentage points in less than a month - probably the result of a barrage of negative ads by the better-funded O'Malley campaign and Democratic-leaning groups that have sought to discredit Ehrlich's gubernatorial tenure.

O'Malley's favorability numbers have stayed about the same, and the poll shows that the incumbent is locking down many of the key constituencies he will need to prevail Nov. 2, including Democrats in the vote-rich Washington suburbs.

O'Malley's lead has edged to 14 points from 11 in last month's poll, and four in 10 of Ehrlich's supporters say they expect O'Malley to win a second term. About nine of 10 O'Malley supporters say they expect the Democrat to win.

Clewell Howell, a Towson resident who said he is getting by on steady work as a plumber, said he will absolutely vote for Ehrlich, because he is scared that "the second [O'Malley] gets reelected, he'll be raising taxes."

But like other right-leaning poll respondents, Howell, 50, said he also has no idea how Ehrlich can pull it off. O'Malley prevailed by 7 percentage points in 2006.

"To be perfectly honest, I'm not terribly impressed with [Ehrlich's] campaign. I didn't think there was any magic there," Howell said.

In the poll, about nine in 10 Democrats side with O'Malley, and a similar proportion of Republicans back Ehrlich. Independent voters favor Ehrlich, 52 to 36 percent.

It's the Democratic tilt of the state that is lifting O'Malley to his big, late lead. Fully 49 percent of likely voters identify as Democrats, about double the 25 percent who call themselves Republicans.

Trying to get out the vote

For both campaigns, driving up turnout among targeted groups will be key to the final week of the race. That was underscored by Ehrlich's and O'Malley's activities over the weekend.

On Sunday, Ehrlich brought in a longtime friend, former New York mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani (R), for a rally at a northern Montgomery County farm where a "Dump O'Malley" dump truck was parked for the occasion.

Speaking to a large, enthusiastic crowd, Giuliani said O'Malley is bad for Maryland's economy, branding him "the most anti-business governor in America."

"You don't deserve to be governor if your state has gotten worse while you govern," said Giuliani, citing data about Maryland's unemployment rate and deficit.

Ehrlich has made a concerted push this year in Montgomery, hoping to build his numbers among more conservative pockets of Maryland's most populous jurisdiction. But the Post poll found that Ehrlich's standing in the Democratic bastion mirrors his lackluster performances in 2002 and 2006.

County voters now prefer O'Malley, 65 to 33 percent. Ehrlich won 38 percent of the vote in Montgomery in 2002 and 37 percent four years later against O'Malley.

On Saturday, Ehrlich marched across the Baltimore suburbs - a region home to many blue-collar Democrats who have shown a willingness to vote Republican - as part of a voting tour.

"The five major counties surrounding Baltimore - big numbers, that's our base!" Ehrlich said at a rally in Severna Park.

Ehrlich racked up lopsided margins in the Baltimore suburbs en route to his upset victory in 2002. But the most recent Post poll shows him with only a modest lead over O'Malley, 49 to 43 percent, in the five counties of Anne Arundel, Baltimore, Cecil, Harford and Howard.

O'Malley spent Sunday at two churches in Prince George's County before heading to a get-out-the-vote rally in Montgomery and speaking to Equality Maryland, the state's leading gay and lesbian rights group.

Turnout in Prince George's, Maryland's largest majority-black jurisdiction, is among the biggest keys to O'Malley's reelection hopes. The poll shows O'Malley leading in the county, 83 to 11 percent, an even stronger showing than in 2006.

But turnout for competitive primaries in Prince George's was unusually low last month, and there are no other marquee races to draw county voters to the polls Nov. 2.

O'Malley said Sunday that he was taking nothing for granted.

Shortly after dawn, his state-issued hybrid sport-utility vehicle pulled up outside Galilee Baptist in Suitland. A Catholic, O'Malley listened and at times stood and applauded with congregations when called to praise.

At the second service O'Malley attended, at Evangel Cathedral in Upper Marlboro, Bishop Don Meares said, "God has a way of putting us in the right place, at the right time, with the right people."

"I don't believe any of the polls right now," O'Malley told a reporter as he left Evangel. "There's examples throughout history of candidates that were up in the polls one week and ended up losing the next week. So this is a time when we need to redouble our efforts on the door-to-door and the canvassing and try to get to as many people as we can in the remaining days."

Among black voters statewide, O'Malley dominates Ehrlich, 88 to 6 percent. African Americans were 21 percent of all likely voters in the poll, close to the average of 22 percent in the previous three gubernatorial contests. White voters side more narrowly with Ehrlich, 50 to 44 percent.

Ehrlich's relatively weak showing among white voters largely explains O'Malley's big lead. When Ehrlich won the governorship eight years ago, 64 percent of white voters backed him, according to a Post exit poll.

Economy and education

In last month's poll, O'Malley had double-digit advantages when voters were asked which candidate better understands their problems and which one would better look out for the needs of their part of the state.

Those numbers favor O'Malley even more heavily in the new poll. Fifty-one percent said O'Malley is more empathetic, compared with 36 percent for Ehrlich. The margin on the other question is similar: 51 to 37 percent.

Some of the areas of greatest movement in Maryland voters' opinions about the candidates correlate with issues that O'Malley has emphasized in TV ads.

He has outspent Ehrlich at least 2 to 1 on media. That includes nearly $6 million that O'Malley has spent, mostly on TV ads, in the past six weeks, according to campaign finance disclosures.

The economy and budget deficit were topics of O'Malley's first TV ad, which began airing in the Baltimore market in July.

The first line of that ad said O'Malley "inherited a $1.7 billion budget deficit" from his predecessor and used a collage of images and figures to portray O'Malley as hard at work "cutting $5 billion in waste and government spending."

O'Malley used his first negative ad, which began airing last month, to try to undermine Ehrlich's credibility. The ad says that as governor, Ehrlich raised "$3 billion in taxes and fees," and it takes him to task for trying to parse a difference between a tax and a fee, with a woman saying that if it comes out of her pocket, "it's a tax."

O'Malley's lead among voters on the issue of education has also grown significantly since May. The governor's first TV ad in the Washington market touted "record funding" of education during his tenure and a "No. 1 ranking" of Maryland schools.

Fully 62 percent of poll respondents say they trust O'Malley to do a better job on education to 27 percent for Ehrlich. In May, the margin was smaller, with 47 percent of likely voters backing O'Malley and 36 percent siding with Ehrlich.

Todd Eberly, a political science professor at St. Mary's College, said that in many of O'Malley's ads, there are no pictures of the current governor, only of Ehrlich accompanied by statistics and figures portraying his record.

O'Malley's aggressive TV campaign has effectively "turned Ehrlich into the incumbent," Eberly sid. "To see those ads, it's almost as if he's in office now, and we're passing judgment on him."

For the Post poll, conducted Oct. 19 to 22, 2,355 randomly selected adults in Maryland were interviewed, including 1,962 registered voters and 1,434 voters likely to cast ballots. Results among likely voters have a margin of error of 3 percentage points.

wagnerj@washpost.com davisa@washpost.com cohenj@washpost.com

Staff writer Ann E. Marimow and assistant polling analyst Kyle Dropp contributed to this report.