What the Goucher College poll tells us about opinions leading into the Maryland general election

Repeating polls in the lead-up to an election — for all the shortcomings of polling — allows us to see how political opinion is changing or coalescing. Taking multiple snapshots of the same electorate builds a fuller picture of what people believe, adding confidence that the views expressed in one poll reflect the reality of held opinion. This time, the Goucher College Poll provides a great check on itself and extends what we learned about abortion from the primary poll. Progressives were broadly more motivated to vote after the Supreme Court struck down the national right to abortion with the court’s June Dobbs v. Jackson decision.