A new poll by Rasmussen shows Martin O’Malley and Bob Ehrlich tied at 45% support among 500 likely voters. Some raise the question of whether Rasmussen is biased in favor of Republicans. A bigger problem for your author is that Rasmussen’s typical sample size of 500 is too small for a statewide poll. Still, this is now the third Rasmussen poll since February. If the firm is repeating the same methodology in each poll, the trend should be instructive. And according to them, the trend is that the race is slowly tightening and is now firmly in the margin of error (which in their case is four points). Consider the following results from the polls of February 23, April 20 and June 8.
Maryland Governor’s Race
February: O’Malley 49, Ehrlich 43
April: O’Malley 47, Ehrlich 44
June: O’Malley 45, Ehrlich 45
Favorable/Unfavorable
February: O’Malley 54/40, Ehrlich 55/36
April: O’Malley 54/43, Ehrlich 56/39
June: O’Malley 53/43, Ehrlich 53/42
O’Malley Approval/Disapproval
February: 53/42
April: 50/48
June: 54/44
Barack Obama Approval//Disapproval
February: 59/40
April: 59/41
June: 56/36
Support for Repealing Federal Health Care Bill
April: 38% Strongly favor, 8% Somewhat favor, 5% Somewhat oppose, 44% Strongly oppose, 5% Not sure
June: 42% Strongly favor, 11% Somewhat favor, 6% Somewhat oppose, 36% Strongly oppose, 5% Not sure
All margins of error are 4%.