Polling in Democratic primary for Maryland Governor 2014

[warandwar]

Recent polling from Abt SRBI has LG Anthony G. Brown (D) leading 32-15 over State AG Douglas Gansler (D), while Heather Mizeur (D) has 9%.

I know a poll for the Sun had something like 32-14-10. Brown and Gansler have both come out with advertising recently, too. From my (completely anecdotal) experiences phonebanking for the Mizeur campaign, I can tell you most voters are undecided. Brown is the clear frontrunner and has almost all of the establishment endorsements locked down. He's up big in PG, the City, and Howard/the rest of Maryland. Gansler has significant support in MoCo, as does Mizeur. Brown has a lot of money and can raise money during the legislative session, due to a stupid loophole (his Lt. Gov. pick, Ken Ulman, is a County Executive (for Howard, my home county)), as can Mizeur (because she's doing public financing). I'd say most support for Brown is pretty soft right now, and I'd give the chance he wins at something like 70%. 

[warandwar]

Hasn't Gansler basically emptied a machine gun clip into his foot, though? I would imagine he has something like a 0% chance of winning.

Not really. My (obviously biased) opinion is that Mizeur has a better chance. Gansler still has plenty of money, though and while the stuff he did doesn't look good, it's nothing really terrible. He met his son at a senior week party (looks bad, but it's something that at least 1/2 of all Maryland teenagers go to) and demanded that his cop drivers use their sirens and drive on the "a-hole lane" (something that also looks bad, but I'm sure there are many people who would entertain doing this, given how infuriating DMV traffic can be). If he can consolidate MoCo votes, cut into Brown's margins in PG, and get big votes in Baltimore County, AA, and HoCo, he could win. Not likely, but not impossible.

[warandwar]

The question is whether Gansler can cut the margin to less than 20 points ?

There's still plenty of time left and Brown's gotten some bad press recently, with the MD exchange (which he was responsible for, more or less) getting completely scrapped, to be replaced with the software from the Connecticut exchange.

[warandwar]

http://www.theseventhstate.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/GanslerIveyPoll.pdf

31-22-8

[warandwar]

Bigger question is whether Obama will intervene in this race and decide the winner ?

We know Brown has the endorsements of the majority of the state's elected officeholders.

If he would endorse anyone, it would be Brown. However, I don't really see him doing that. I could be wrong, but I don't think he's ever endorsed in an open seat.