Sun Poll

One year before the 2006 statewide election, Republican Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. trails his two chief rivals, with many voters approving the incumbent's job performance but signaling a desire to return the state to its traditional Democratic roots. Baltimore Mayor Martin O'Malley leads Ehrlich by 15 percentage points, 48 percent to 33 percent, according to a poll conducted for The Sun by the independent, nonpartisan firm Potomac Inc. Montgomery County Executive Douglas M. Duncan has a 5 percentage point lead on the governor but has gained little ground on the mayor in the weeks after the two Democrats' formal entry into the governor's race.

Incumbent Stephanie C. Rawlings-Blake and Michael Sarbanes, a longtime civic activist, are in a dead heat in this year's Democratic primary campaign for City Council president, with the bulk of voters undecided, according to the results of a poll conducted for The Sun. Twenty-seven percent of the likely Baltimore Democratic primary voters polled said they would vote for Sarbanes versus 26 percent for Rawlings-Blake. The poll has a margin of error of no more than 4 percentage points. But 37 percent of the electorate said they have not decided on a candidate to support, meaning the race is far from settled.

ANNAPOLIS -- "Negative, negative, negative," was all Gov. William Donald Schaefer could say about The Sun's coverage last week of his appointment of Capt. Larry Tolliver, his chief bodyguard, as the new superintendent of State Police.So, when The Evening Sun asked its readers the very next day to register their opinion on the appointment by telephone, Mr. Schaefer was outraged. He angrily complained the question was skewed to produce a vote against his appointee.Mr. Schaefer's press secretary, Frank Traynor, apparently took the governor's remarks as a cue and did what he could to skew the clearly unscientific poll in the captain's favor.

Fresh off his upset primary victory over Comptroller William Donald Schaefer, Del. Peter Franchot holds an almost 2-to-1 lead over his Republican opponent, former University of Baltimore business school dean Anne M. McCarthy, according to a new Sun poll. Franchot appears to have come through a contentious three-way battle for the Democratic nomination with minimal damage. He is garnering the support of nearly eight in 10 Democrats for the important but low-visibility job of chief tax collector.

In the aftermath of a confrontational General Assembly session, Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. gets poor marks from Maryland voters on working with legislators and protecting the environment, and has slipped behind Baltimore Mayor Martin O'Malley in a potential 2006 contest for governor, according to The Sun Poll released today. The survey results show a downward shift in the governor's job approval rating since January, the last time Potomac Inc. questioned likely voters on state politics and issues.

For months now, House Speaker R. Clayton Mitchell has adamantly maintained that citizens want lawmakers to solve the state's entire billion-dollar deficit problem by simply cutting back the size of government. No new taxes has been Mr. Mitchell's credo. And he has held firm to this position. The people want it that way, he says.But Mr. Mitchell, it turns out, is wrong. According to today's Sun Poll, Marylanders do not want endless cutting of jobs and government services that will hurt schools, police and fire operations, libraries and the social programs they have come to depend upon.

MARYLAND High court to hear carjacking case Children take photos of schools Fifty black-and-white portraits of life in Baltimore public schools make up an exhibit at Gallery 1448 in East Baltimore. Schoolchildren taught basic photography and given point-and-shoot cameras took the pictures. [Page 1e] `Survivors,' local TV documentary Survivors Among Us, a one-hour local documentary airing without commercials at 8 tonight on WBAL-TV, chronicles histories of Baltimore-area Holocaust survivors.

Republican challenger Wayne T. Gilchrest has pulled ahead of Democratic Representative Roy P. Dyson in their heated contest to represent the 1st Congressional District, according to The Sun Poll of likely voters in the district.The poll -- conducted last week -- found that 45 percent said theywould vote for Mr. Gilchrest, while39 percent backed the congressman, who is campaigning for a sixth term. Sixteen percent were undecided. The margin of error was plus or minus 3.9 percentage points.

A poll of likely Baltimore County voters taken for WBAL-TV shows Republican county executive candidate Roger B. Hayden in a virtual dead heat in his race against Democratic incumbent Dennis F. Rasmussen.The poll of 431 registered voters showed Hayden with 43.6 percent support, to Rasmussen's 41 percent, with 15.4 percent still undecided. The three-day sample was taken Oct. 22-24 and was prepared by Western Maryland College professor Herbert Smith.The poll has a 5 percent margin of error either way, however, meaning there could be a 10-point difference in the spread, according to WBAL political analyst Theodore G. "Ted" Venetoulis, himself a former Baltimore County executive.

Brad Coker calls it "the Paul Bunyan story" -- a feat of election polling that has assumed the outsized proportions of legend.Democrat Elizabeth Bobo was expected to be re-elected as county executive in Howard County. Mr. Coker, president of Mason-Dixon Opinion Research of Columbia, did polling for Howard's Republicans and told Charles I. Ecker, Ms. Bobo's opponent, that he would win by 300 votes.When the votes were finally counted, including the absentee ballots, Mr. Ecker won by 450 votes of 52,570 cast -- an "error" by Mr. Coker not of 3 percentage points (the margin of sampling error for the 1,039 interviews Mason-Dixon conducted)