Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley is leading Republican challenger Bob Ehrlich by six percentage points in the latest poll released on Tuesday.
O’Malley won 47 percent of votes compared to Ehrlich’s 41 percent – with a 4 percent margin of error — in a telephone survey of 600 “likely” voters conducted by OpinionWorks, an Annapolis polling firm.
The results reveal a larger margin between the candidates than reported by other recent polls, including a Rasmussen poll that found the two candidates at a virtual dead heat and a survey by Gonzales Research and Marketing Strategies that found O’Malley leading Ehrlich by 3 percentage points.
OpinionWorks also surveyed voter support in the Republican primaries, and found 75 percent of Republicans supporting Ehrlich, compared with 15 percent supporting political newcomer Brian Murphy.
Murphy, a Montgomery County businessman, landed Sarah Palin’s endorsement in early August. Eleven percent of likely Republican voters said Palin’s endorsement made them more likely to vote for Murphy, whereas 15 percent said it made them less likely to support him. The rest said the endorsement made no difference.
OpinionWorks advertises as a nonpartisan polling center, but several of its founders have donated to O’Malley’s campaign.
