With only two months remaining, registered Maryland voters eligible to vote in the June 24 primary are clearly undecided about who should govern the state.  More than two-thirds of Maryland Republican voters are undecided. Asked who they would vote for if the primaries were held today, 16 percent of registered Republicans clearly favor Larry Hogan. David Craig is Hogan’s strongest challenger, but trails in single digits at 7.8 percent.  Niether Charles Lollar nor Ronald George is a credible candidate, with less than 4 percent each at this late stage in the race.

The Maryland Poll

This information was gathered through the Maryland Poll (MPoll), a research and teaching project of Professor of Political Science Susan Grogan at St. Mary’s College of Maryland. Grogan’s sophomore-level American Politics class assisted with the design and analysis of the poll. The MPoll seeks to make public opinion available to citizens and lawmakers in the state as a public service and to enrich the education of St. Mary’s College of Maryland’s students by practice and engagement in the political process.

Additional Findings:

A slight majority (54 percent) of Democrats also are undecided about who they would vote for as Maryland governor if the primaries were held today.  Anthony Brown is the clear leader amongst polled Democrats with 27 percent, followed by Douglas Gansler at 11 percent.  Heather Mizeur trails with 8 percent.

With more than two years remaining before the 2016 presidential election, rather than asking for whom registered voters intend to vote, we asked them which Democrat and which Republican has the best chance of winning.  Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton continues to dominate the Democratic field of candidates with two-thirds of all registered voters believing Clinton is the Democrat who has the best chance of winning the election.  Elizabeth Warren at 11 percent polled slightly ahead of Vice President Joe Biden with 10 percent.  Governors Martin O’Malley and Andrew Cuomo both polled at 6 percent.

On the Republican side, Jeb Bush (34 percent) and Chris Christie (32 percent) are in a dead heat at the starting-line of the presidential marathon, each with one-third of registered Maryland voters thinking they have the best chance to win the election. Rand Paul at 19 percent and Mike Huckabee at 15 percent split the remainder.

More respondents favor (35 percent) than oppose (31 percent) the current three-year Maryland moratorium on fracking set to expire this August, with a large sector (34 percent) expressing no opinion.

On the other hand, more respondents favor approving than not (39 percent to 30 percent) Dominion Resources’ proposal to build a liquid natural gas export terminal at its import facility at Cove Point, on the Chesapeake Bay in Southern Maryland’s Calvert County.

More feel that the environmental health of Maryland and the Chesapeake Bay is improving (28 percent) or staying about the same (47 percent) than getting worse (20 percent).

Nevertheless, most think global temperatures have increased (46 percent) during the past century.  A third believe that temperatures have stayed about the same (33 percent) with the remainder split between being unsure (15 percent) or stating that global temperatures have decreased (6 percent).

Respondents are equally divided by thirds over whether or not their U.S. Congressional representative is doing a good (34 percent) or bad job (33 percent) , one-third being uncertai