By Michael Phillips | MDBayNews
The full results of this week’s Maryland Now poll show something the topline horse-race number didn’t: neither major political party is particularly popular with Maryland voters right now, even as Gov. Wes Moore himself holds a comfortable personal lead over Republican challenger Dan Cox.
According to the complete topline released by pollster Zenith Research, the Republican Party’s approval rating in Maryland sits at 32%, with 65% disapproving — a net approval of negative 34 points. The Democratic Party does better, at 50% approval to 47% disapproval, but a net of positive 2 points is a thin margin for a party that holds every statewide office in Maryland. Both figures are new detail beyond what MDBayNews reported in its initial coverage of the poll’s horse-race numbers Tuesday.
The same survey found President Donald Trump’s approval in Maryland at 31%, with 67% disapproving. That 31% figure is identical, down to the point, with Cox’s 31% share in the governor’s race — a coincidence Green Party gubernatorial nominee Andy Ellis flagged in a press release Wednesday, renewing his campaign’s call for a four-candidate debate.
What the Full Topline Shows
The poll, conducted by Zenith Research for Blended Public Affairs and the Annapolis lobbying firm Perry Jacobson, surveyed 800 likely Maryland general election voters from July 27 to Aug. 3, with a margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points. Beyond the horse race, the full results show:
- Moore’s personal approval outpaces his party’s. Moore’s job approval stands at 56% approve, 39% disapprove — a net positive of 17, well ahead of his own party’s net positive of 2.
- Cox’s ceiling looks a lot like Trump’s floor. Cox’s 31% support in the governor’s race exactly matches Trump’s 31% job approval in the same survey, suggesting Cox’s support may be capped by the same voters who make up Trump’s base in Maryland, rather than drawing meaningfully beyond it.
- Nine percent of voters remain undecided, with another 3% saying they’d back someone other than Moore or Cox — a combined 12% of the electorate not yet locked in, more than three months before Election Day.
- Most of Moore’s opposition is hardened, not soft. Of the 39% who disapprove of Moore’s job performance, 27 percentage points come from voters who strongly disapprove, versus 12 who only somewhat disapprove — meaning the voters who dislike Moore mostly dislike him firmly, not tentatively.
Moore’s personal approval outpaces his party’s.
Ellis Renews His Debate Push
Ellis, the Green Party’s nominee, used the release of the poll’s full detail to make his case for a broader debate stage. Maryland Public Television requires candidates to reach 10% in public polling before it will include them in a televised gubernatorial debate, a threshold MDBayNews has previously reported no third-party candidate for governor has cleared in Maryland since the Civil War era.
“Voters are upset at both parties and frustrated with the state,” Ellis said in the release, arguing the numbers make the case for including all four tickets — his own, along with Moore, Cox and Working Class Party nominee Cathy White — in this fall’s debates.
A meaningful share of Maryland voters aren’t enthusiastic about either major party, even if that dissatisfaction hasn’t yet translated into third-party support at the ballot box.
Ellis’s campaign has previously called for at least four regional debates, one each in Western Maryland, the Baltimore region, the Washington suburbs and the Eastern Shore, with at least one hosted by MPT. As MDBayNews reported this week, Ellis’s campaign has set a goal of winning 100,000 votes this fall, which it says would be the strongest third-party gubernatorial performance in Maryland since Reconstruction. The poll’s 3% “someone else” figure, applied to a Maryland gubernatorial electorate that has run in the low millions in recent cycles, points to a total in that neighborhood but likely short of 100,000 — a reminder that turning polling support into an actual historic vote count is still a heavy lift with less than three months to go.
Reading the Numbers Fairly
It’s worth being careful about what the party approval numbers do and don’t say. A negative 34-point net approval for the Republican Party is a real problem for Cox’s ticket in a state where registered Democrats outnumber Republicans roughly two to one — it suggests Cox is running behind his own party label as much as behind Moore personally. But the Democratic Party’s own numbers are hardly a mandate: a net approval of positive 2 in a state this blue is unremarkable at best, and the gap between how voters see Moore individually (+17) and how they see his party (+2) suggests his personal brand, not the Democratic Party’s, is doing the heavy lifting in this race.
His personal brand, not the Democratic Party’s, is doing the heavy lifting in this race.
That distinction matters for how each side reads the same poll. Moore’s team can fairly point to his individual numbers as a sign of durable personal popularity. Cox’s team, and Maryland Republicans more broadly, have to grapple with a state party brand that remains deeply unpopular even before Cox’s own baggage from 2022 factors in. And third-party campaigns like Ellis’s and White’s have real data now to back up the argument that a meaningful share of Maryland voters aren’t enthusiastic about either major party, even if that dissatisfaction hasn’t yet translated into third-party support at the ballot box.
Sources: All polling figures are from the Maryland Now: August 2026 Poll (Part 2) full topline, published by Zenith Research and distributed by FOX45/WBFF Baltimore (Aug. 12, 2026); the survey was conducted July 27–Aug. 3, 2026, among 800 likely Maryland general election voters, MOE ±3.5%. Cross-checked against reporting from Maryland Matters (Aug. 12, 2026) and FOX45/WBFF Baltimore (Aug. 12, 2026). Andy Ellis’s statement and debate-access renewal are from a press release issued by the Ellis/Andrews campaign (Aug. 12, 2026). Background on MPT’s 10% debate threshold and Ellis’s stated campaign goals are from MDBayNews’s Aug. 12, 2026, report on all four gubernatorial tickets, and Maryland Matters’ July 11, 2026, report on third-party candidates.
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