Folks, it’s time for Democrats to break that emergency glass. With a recent Washington Post/University of Maryland poll showing Republican former Governor Larry Hogan beating U.S. House Representative David Trone and Prince George’s County Executive Angela Alsobrooks Angela by 12 (49%-37%) and 14 (50%-36%) points, respectively, it is clear we are in very serious danger of losing Ben Cardin’s long-held seat to Republicans, and that would be a disaster for Democrats’ efforts to sand up to insurrectionist Trump’s MAGA fascism no matter how nice Larry may seem or how popular he is in Maryland: as a Republican in the Senate, he would vote far too often with Trump’s insane MAGA cult. Most people I run into in Maryland and ask in Maryland “Who is running for U.S. Senate?” can’t even name Trone and Alsobrooks, but more people know Hogan is running. But that is not anecdotal: the poll bears this reality out, too, as voters had no opinion of them, 46% when it came to Trone and 58% compared to Alsobrooks, while Hogan had a 64% favorable rating.
None of this bodes well for keeping the retiring Democratic Senator Ben Cardin’s seat in Democrats’ hands. Rather, these are signs we will lose if the two frontrunners don’t change their approach to their campaigns; if the Democratic Party organizations in Maryland don’t change how they are organizing primary events and coordinate more; if the news media does not start prioritizing covering the primary; and if the candidates, Democratic Party organs, and media do not among themselves coordinate better, it is far more likely that Larry Hogan will take over Ben Cardin’s seat and that is unacceptable.
They have all had a lot of time going well back into last year to have approached this differently. Assuming Larry Hogan was not going to run is no excuse: a series of highly coordinated, highly covered, highly televised or at least properly recorded events—this has not happened at the first three debates, the first of which was only this past December—could easily have been crafted before last December. We could have been generating for more enthusiasm, name recognition, and buzz around this race and these candidates. We as Democrats have not.
Does this mean we are doomed to failure? No. Certainly not. It may be too late, but it may not be and I do not intent to hand this seat to Larry Hogan without a real fight. But right now the two frontrunners are failing and they seem too comfortable doing what they have been doing, not in challenging each other on substance or changing course to put us on a path to victory in November. Right now, this process is not bringing out the best of the frontrunners to enough people.
Which bring us to how that latest poll was conducted shamefully: the only previous comparably respectable poll from a month ago has 14% of voters choosing other candidates, including myself at 1% (technically 1.2%, and far from the lowest, ha, but keep in mind that was before I was the only second-tier candidate mentioned by any top-tier news outlet two debates in a row over the past few weeks, as I have noted in detail before; given my media dominance among the second-tiers, I think it totally reasonable that I could have expected a bounce and maybe even broken away into a clear third place). In that earlier poll from mid-February, collectively we second-tiers came to about as much as Alsobrooks’s 17% (at 14%). Trone was far ahead in that poll, 32%, but the true winner was “Undecided” coming in at 37%. That aforementioned latest poll clocked in 39% for “Undecided” in the Democratic primary, with Trone at 34%, then Alsobrooks at 27%. The earlier poll was conducted by Emerson/The Hill, a different outfit from the Washington Post/UMD folks that conducted the latest poll, so I would really like to see each pollster with subsequent polls to compare to their own polls rather than each other to get a real sense of trends and momentum. For now, with just two polls and so little to work with, I would view each as a snapshot from different pollsters and different sampling methodology rather than as representative of trends from one month to another, but with giving more credence to the most recent poll. With so much uncertainty in this race and so many undecideds in both polls, and with the only other poll besides the most recent one having myself and the other second-tier candidates cumulatively nearly equaling Alsobrooks’s support, it was unconscionable that the Post/UMD poll completely omitted all of us second-tier candidates and did not even include an “other” option, deliberately presenting not just a distorted picture, but an unfair and biased one. Perhaps I could have risen to 5%, 10%, or who knows; the higher the less likely, to be sure, but any bounce elevating me might have put in a clear third place and made me part of the conversation. Excluding that prevents that for now, unless a journalist present at tonight’s or another debate or another poll mentions me favorably. Time will tell, but the Post/UMD pollsters should have striven for more accuracy and inclusivity in the way most good pollsters do in uncertain races like this with more obscure characters.
So the time is now, dear Marylanders, to bring a third person into this race, to shake things up, to press the frontrunners on their weaknesses and failed approaches before Larry Hogan does so they can properly address them when he does, to on one end forge them into better general election candidates or even offer an alternative to them on the other end of that spectrum. Right now we are failing, but I am just what this race needs to shake it up—to light a fire under our collective asses—even if I am not the eventual nominee, and yet perhaps I will, perhaps I should be, since the status quo has been a train wreck that has put us in a hole against Larry Hogan in a blue state like our great Maryland.
I sure as hell don’t want to Larry Hogan and Republicans to win. So support me for now even if you support David or Angela because we need help, the status quo is obviously not working, and I am the that third candidate that can change this race to put whomever is going to be the nominee—David, Angela, or myself—in the best position to win for Democrats, Maryland, and this nation in the fall. Now is the time to raise my candidacy to be an integral part of this race, now is the time to spread the word, now is the time to donate to my campaign, now is the time to really get things going.
Oh, and there’s a debate tonight in Baltimore! Come out if you can, information below!
