Three out of four Maryland voters believe the budget problems facing the state are “a very big problem” and six out of 10 say the economy is “the most important issue facing the state today,” according to the most recent Gonzales Research poll.
The poll of 842 registered voters also found slightly improved ratings for Gov. Martin O’Malley, somewhat lower support for the death penalty and extremely high ratings for President-elect Barack Obama.
About half the voters surveyed are “somewhat confident” that Maryland’s economy will return to the level it enjoyed prior to the current recession in the next two years.
O’Malley’s job approval rating is now 49 percent, up 4 points from a Gonzales poll in September. That rating almost matches his highest rating of 52 percent in March 2007, shortly after he took office.
The number of voters disapproving of O’Malley’s performance also went up slightly, by 2 percentage points to 37 percent. The margin of error for the poll is 3.5 percent.
Democrats and independents give the Democratic governor even higher ratings. Almost two-thirds of Democrats (65 percent) and 59 percent of independents approve of the job he’s doing. Only 17 percent of Republicans approve of the job he is doing.
O’Malley’s approval ratings are slightly lower than those found in October by The Washington Post, which pegged it at 53 percent.
“O’Malley’s in great shape with Democrats,” said Gonzales partner Laslo Boyd. “Those are very, very strong numbers” and would certainly discourage any kind of primary challenge from his own party in 2010.
The intense disapproval of O’Malley by Republicans (71 percent) “doesn’t mean much politically,” said Boyd, who has been a consultant on Democratic political campaigns.
Boyd also noted that voters “buy the case that there’s a budget problem,” a case he thought O’Malley had not made strongly enough before the tax increases he pushed in the 2007 special session, leading to sharp declines in his approval ratings.
A majority of Maryland voters (53 percent) still support the death penalty, but that number has gone down 4 points since 2007 and 9 points since 2001.
The death penalty enjoys stronger support among Republicans (81 percent), whites (60 percent) and men (49 percent), while a majority of Democrats and blacks oppose it.
Two-thirds of voters say life without parole is an acceptable alternative to the death penalty in cases of murder.
Four out of five voters approve of the way Barack Obama is handling the transition, including 94 percent of Democrats, 82 percent of independents and 55 percent of Republicans.
