Gov. Wes Moore’s approval rating has gone up by 7 percentage points in the six months since the collapse of Baltimore’s Francis Scott Key bridge, a new poll shows.

On March 12, 2024, the Democrat governor had a 53% approval rating. As of Sept. 23, his approval rating rests at 60%, according to a poll from The Washington Post and the University of Maryland’s Center for Democracy and Civic Engagement.

The poll of 1,012 registered voters in Maryland was conducted Sept. 19 through Sept. 23. The poll’s margin of error is plus or minus 3.5 percentage points.

Of the polled voters, 77% said they approve of Moore’s response in the wake of the bridge’s collapse. The cargo ship Dali collided with the Key Bridge in the early hours of March 26 after experiencing a electrical failure, crumbling the span into the Patapsco River and killing six construction workers.

Moore and Maryland Attorney General Anthony Brown, a Democrat, said Tuesday they were filing a lawsuit in U.S. District Court against Grace Ocean Private Limited and Synergy Marine Pte. Ltd, the Singaporean owner and operator of the ship, calling the disaster “entirely preventable.”

Flavio Hickel Jr., an assistant professor at Washington College, said he is unsurprised at the surge in Moore’s approval rating, adding that it is his impression that “people are generally impressed” at how quickly the cleanup occurred and the speed at which the port was reopened

“He is the governor, so things that happen in the state, rightly or wrongly, are going to be attributed to him,” Hickel said.

Todd Eberly, a professor of political science and public policy at St. Mary’s College of Maryland, told The Baltimore Sun in an interview that “it would be hard to simply point to his response to the bridge” as a reason for Moore’s surging approval rating.

“Things have been going relatively well in Maryland,” he said, pointing to the state’s improving economy and political buzz among Democrats since President Joe Biden dropped out of the presidential race and endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris.

With the 2025 legislative session just a few months away, Eberly said that Moore’s high approval rating is “good political capital” for his priority policies.

“It’s a place you want to be with a legislative session about to kick off,” he said.

The current governor’s approval rating still trails behind former Gov. Larry Hogan, a popular Republican and current U.S. Senate nominee, whose approval rating was at 73% on Sept. 27, 2022 — about four months before he left office — and 71% during the fall of the second year of his first term.

“Most of it is partisan,” Eberly said of Hogan’s higher approval rating, noting that he had favorability among Republicans and Independents and “unusual high approval ratings from Democrats.”

“With Moore, you see a more traditional breakdown,” he said.

Hickel said that Democrats saw Hogan as “a fairly safe” or “fairly moderate Republican” based on the direction of the party.

“To me, that speaks to the fact that Larry Hogan … had fully consolidated the Republican base in Maryland,” which he might struggle with today “based on his opposition to Trump,” he said.

According to the poll, Hogan has a higher favorability rating than Democratic U.S. Senate nominee and Prince George’s County Executive Angela Alsobrooks, who polled in at 50% to Hogan’s 53%. However, Hogan’s favorability rating has gone down 11 percentage points since March, while Alsobrooks’ has nearly doubled.

Maryland’s Senate race is being closely watched nationally as one that could flip control of the U.S. Senate to the Republican Party.

If Hogan is elected to the Senate, 46% of polled voters believe he will support Republican leadership policies, while 43% believe he will act independently of the GOP. Only 20% think he will support abortion protections if elected, while 29% believe he will support restrictions. Nearly half are unsure of how Hogan will vote on the issue.

Eberly said that Moore’s high approval rating makes for a presumably “happy” Alsobrooks, who likely will reap the benefits of his supporters and people who will vote for Harris for president.

“Any time you have a governor, you want that governor — if they’re a member of your own party — to have relatively high approval ratings,” Eberly said. “If Moore was unpopular or suffering in any way … it certainly would be something that would influence Democrats down ballot.”

Hickel said that “vibe is the word of 2024” — since things are going relatively well for the state and for Moore, who endorsed her, Alsobrooks is likely to reap the benefits, though there’s debate among political scientists about the weight of endorsements.

“To the extent that Moore is garnering bipartisan support … that could help,” he said. “Hogan and Alsobrooks are both battling for Democrats.”

Voters also were asked about their view on Moore’s incorrect claim that he was the recipient of a Bronze Star medal while applying for a White House fellowship in 2006.

Moore has acknowledged the incident, calling it “an honest mistake,” and said he mentioned the award on the application per the instructions of a superior officer who had recommended him for the medal and believed it received the proper confirmations for approval.

Of those polled, 34% of voters think the governor made an honest mistake, while 46% think he was attempting to take credit for an accomplishment he didn’t earn.

“I would suspect that’s the kind of thing that’s going to cut across party lines” with regard to favorability, said Eberly, adding that he doesn’t believe it would have an overall effect on his approval rating or the party overall.