Marylanders Lean YES On Two Ballot Questions, Sobhani Reaches 20% in US Senate Race

We have a new poll for the state of Maryland that dives into how Marylanders feel about the ballot questions we will be voting on in November.  Gonzales Research usually takes a few days before posting poll results to its website, but Maryland Reporter did post the actual poll results document at its website.  Boiling it down to what this means for the actual ballot questions and how they would turn out assuming the results match the expected way people would vote on the questions, here are those results:

QUESTION 4 - DREAM ACT
Yes 58%
No 34%

QUESTION 6 - SAME SEX MARRIAGE
Yes 51%
No 43%

QUESTION 7 - EXPANDED GAMBLING
Yes 45%
No 46%

The questions on Same Sex Marriage and the Dream Act are pretty clear cut.  If you are in favor or oppose either issue, your vote in November is clear.  Interestingly in this poll, 17% of Republicans favor same-sex marriage, roughly one out of every five Republicans you run across will support same-sex marriage and appear to be ready to vote in favor it this year, including yours truly.

I think the one is many people, like me, have no issue with expanded gambling in the state of Maryland but might have problems with the way it is being implemented.  The vote on this issue is a little more muddled because you might agree with the end goal, but the process to get there makes a lot of people think twice about voting in favor of this question.

I, for one, have been surprised at the seeming lack of any advertising on either side for the Same Sex Marriage issue or the "Dream Act" issue.  Every television ad and mailer that I have seen related to the ballot questions this year has been solely focused on Question 7 regarding the gambling issue.  Is everyone else experiencing the same?

The other item of note that I briefly mentioned in my previous post regarding a new poll from YouGov concerns the US Senate race and how much impact the Independent candidate Rob Sobhani will have.  I think even the most hard core Republican would tell you Maryland is a tough state for Republicans, but I brought up the fact that the YouGov poll did not include Rob Sobhani, who as far as I can tell, is the only candidate running advertising this year on television (at least from what I have seen).  In this latest poll from Gonzales Research, Sobhani is included and is actually threatening to surpass the Republican candidate Dan Bongino in the polls.

US SENATE - MARYLAND (Gonzales)
Ben Cardin (D-inc) 50%
Dan Bongino (R) 22%
Rob Sobhani (I) 21%

I have heard Bongino speak and he is an impressive candidate taking the fact that he is running in Maryland out of the equation, but the truth is I rarely see him outside of political-oriented events.  I see Rob Sobhani all over the television, which is the way most Maryland voters get their political news.  My wife, who pays a lot less attention to Maryland politics than I do, has commented on how many times she has seen him on TV and asked me who he is.  She has never asked me who Dan Bongino is.  Again, it will be tough for either Bongino or Sobhani to defeat Cardin, but the fact that Sobhani appears to have reached at least 20% shows this carpet bombing of television ads is working to get his name out there.

This poll was done September 17-23 among 813 registered voters with a margin of error of +/- 3.5%.  Maryland Reporter has the full results here.