Eight weeks before the start of early voting, Larry Hogan is tapping into goodwill from his two terms as governor — and staying far from Donald Trump — as he bids to become the first Maryland Republican in 44 years to win a U.S. Senate seat.

Hogan’s approach seems to be working, at least for now. Pollsters say he is in a dead heat with Prince George’s County Executive Angela Alsobrooks, a position one pundit likens to “defying gravity” in a state with twice as many registered Democrats as Republicans.

But, like a starting pitcher working into the late innings, the key will be whether Hogan can sustain his performance as Alsobrooks turns up her ad campaign to become better known in her first run at a statewide office.

The open seat was created by the pending retirement of Democratic Sen. Ben Cardin. Democrats, who hold a 51-49 Senate majority, must defend a handful of seats in November in states that Democratic President Joe Biden narrowly won in 2020, plus three others — West Virginia, Ohio and Montana — won by Trump, the former president who is again the Republican nominee. Losing Maryland would make the Democrats’ task even more formidable.“Hogan is getting a fair share of Democrats. I think his name identification is contributing to that,” said Jeff Liszt of Impact Research, which has done polling for many prominent Democrats, in an interview Thursday. “His favorable rating is actually as high as Alsobrooks’ is among Democrats, but there are a lot of Democrats that don’t know her. I think that there are more paths for Alsobrooks than there are for Hogan.”

A poll released last week by Impact Research and Fabrizio Ward, which has worked for many Republicans, found Hogan, 68, meeting two significant benchmarks. He is separating himself from Trump, the Republican presidential nominee who is wildly unpopular in Maryland’s principal population centers of the Baltimore area and Washington suburbs. And he is tapping into his long-held popularity as governor from 2015 to 2023, particularly among voters 50 to 64 who tend to vote at a higher rate than younger people.

Those voters favor Hogan by 13 points, the survey found. But his margin is 23 points among 50-plus Marylanders who name economic concerns — such as inflation, jobs and Social Security — as their most important issues.

The poll found Alsobrooks, 53, leads Hogan by wide margins among the 50-and-over respondents who named threats to democracy or abortion rights as their prime issues.

She also leads Hogan among voters 65 and over. That may be because the baby boom generation “became politically aware during the Vietnam War, during civil rights and the women’s movement” and tends to be more “left of center” than some of their younger counterparts, said Bob Ward of the Fabrizio Ward firm.

The poll, which had the candidates tied 46-46 overall, was sponsored by AARP and paid particular attention to the concerns of people 50 and over. It sampled 600 likely voters during Aug. 14-20 and has a 4% margin of error.

“Larry Hogan’s got a net positive image, not by a little but by double digits,” Ward said.

Overall, Hogan is viewed favorably by 59% of voters compared to 28% unfavorably, a 31% margin.

Alsobrooks’ favorable margin was 25% (41% to 16%), but the poll concluded that “she remains undefined to a significant portion of the electorate.”

In an interview, Sheila O’Connell, Alsobrooks’ campaign manager, said she is not surprised by Hogan’s approval marks, even in a blue state.

“There are residuals when you have that level of support for eight years,” O’Connell said. “Angela has to do what others have failed to do — defeat Larry Hogan statewide.”

An Alsobrooks ad released Thursday opens with “Listen to Larry Hogan describe himself” in white block lettering and shows archived clips of Hogan calling himself, in various ways, a lifelong Republican.

Hogan has positioned himself in the campaign as independent-minded and not beholden to either party. Alsobrooks has stressed that he was recruited to run for the seat by Mitch McConnell, the Senate Republican leader.

“What we know, and what Marylanders are coming to know, is that this race will determine whether Democrats or Republicans hold the Senate majority,” said Connor Lounsbury, an Alsobrooks spokesman.

Hogan senior strategist Russ Schriefer said in an interview that Alsobrooks’ ad states the obvious and is akin to telling voters that Hogan’s first name “is Larry.”

Schriefer acknowledged that Alsobrooks “is going to become better known over the next 67 days, but that’s positive and negative. Nobody has really laid a glove on Angela yet. In the end, this will be a very close race all the way through Election Day.”

The last Republican elected to the U.S. Senate from Maryland was Charles Mathias in 1980.

“This is a surprising poll,” said Flavio Hickel, an assistant political science professor at Washington College on the Eastern Shore. “I would expect Hogan to be probably a couple percentage points below what they reported here. I think right now, a lot of these polls are reflecting that people still don’t know an awful lot about her.”

CNN political analyst David Axelrod posted Wednesday on X: “‘I’d still bet on the Dem, Angela Alsobrooks, but Hogan, an R, is currently defying gravity.”

Early voting begins Oct. 24, and the election is Nov. 5.

Hogan was elected governor in 2014 and 2018. University of Baltimore professor John Willis said Hogan faces a more difficult campaign this year because presidential elections attract far more voters, and Maryland is a heavily Democratic state. Vice President Kamala Harris, a mentor of Alsobrooks, became the Democratic nominee after Biden, 81, withdrew following concerns about his age.

“I know congressmen and senators think they drive the turnout, but it’s the presidential driving turnout,” Willis said.