Poll: Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott, Sheila Dixon locked in another close race

Brandon Scott, Baltimore’s mayor of four years, and Sheila Dixon, the city’s former mayor hoping to reclaim her position, are locked in a close race amid a swell in city voters who feel Baltimore is headed in a positive direction, according to a new poll for The Baltimore Sun, University of Baltimore and FOX45.

The poll conducted April 7-11 shows Scott with 38% support to Dixon’s 35% among likely Democratic primary voters surveyed. Thiru Vignarajah, a former prosecutor and late entrant to the race, had 10% support. Businessman Bob Wallace trailed significantly, with just 4% of likely voters saying they would cast a ballot for him. The poll of 508 people has a margin of error of plus or minus 4.3 percentage points.

The results for the top candidates strongly correlate with how those polled ranked their satisfaction with the direction the city is heading, said Steve Raabe, president of OpinionWorks, the Annapolis-based firm that conducted the poll. Equal numbers of city residents — 40% — viewed the city as moving in the right direction versus the wrong one. While divided, that’s a marked shift from The Sun’s poll four years ago, when just 17% believed the city to be on the right track.

“The big backdrop of this race is how voters are feeling about the direction of the city,” Raabe said. “The growing feeling that the city is starting to move in the right direction strengthens (Scott) as a candidate … A segment of voters want to give him a little bit more time to accomplish things.”

The 2024 Democratic primary, which has a field of 13 candidates, set up a rematch between the incumbent Scott and the veteran but controversial Dixon. When they faced off in 2020, Scott emerged the victor by a narrow margin. He took 29.6% of the vote, while Dixon secured 27.5%, a difference of about 3,100 votes.

The margins in the 2024 race could be narrow again, with turnout patterns likely to drive the race, Raabe said. The poll found Dixon’s support to be softer than Scott’s — 71% of Scott supporters said they were unlikely to change their minds, while 66% said the same of Dixon. Of respondents who said they were most likely to participate in the election — a 10 on a 10-point scale — Scott held a lead of 6 percentage points over Dixon.

Voters who reported being dissatisfied with the city’s direction, however, skewed strongly in the direction of Dixon and Vignarajah, the poll showed. Asked who their second choice would be, Vignarajah voters overwhelmingly chose Dixon.

“If he were not in the race, she would arguably be in a strong position,” Raabe said.

In a narrow election, as the 2024 Democratic primary is shaping up to be, turnout in specific neighborhoods will make the difference, said John Willis, Maryland secretary of state under Democratic Gov. Parris Glendening. In some parts of the city, turnout is likely to be as high as 50%. Others areas could see less than 15%, he said.

“How the campaigns target their base in a close race is going to make a difference,” Willis said. “If it’s as close as last time, where the vote comes from is extraordinarily important.”

As she has in the past, Dixon continues to have strong support among particular pockets of the electorate: Black women, people who have not completed a college degree and those who report being less likely to vote.

Turnout in the city is likely to be more female than male, more Black than not, Raabe said. If white voters or more affluent voters turn out in greater numbers, that could shift the race. If Black voters push turnout higher, potentially motivated by external forces like the candidacy of Angela Alsobrooks for U.S. Senate, that could be “pivotal,” Raabe said. Alsobrooks, the Democratic executive of Prince George’s County, is Black.

Just over four weeks remain before the May 14 primary, but voters participating by mail can submit ballots sooner. Elections officials sent mail-in ballots last week to city voters. In-person early voting will begin May 2.

Crime remained the most dominant concern in the minds of city voters. Asked to name the most important issue as they decided how to vote for the next mayor, about 37% of likely voters said crime or violence. Raabe noted that figure dropped significantly from The Baltimore Sun’s last citywide poll in 2020. That year, two-thirds of voters cited crime as their top issue.

Baltimore’s homicide rate fell below 300 for the first time in almost a decade in 2023, a statistic Scott has tried to capitalize upon on the campaign trail. His opponents, chiefly Dixon, argue residents take little comfort from that as quality-of-life crimes, such as car thefts, have spiked. In contesting that, Dixon has the support of Baltimore State’s Attorney Ivan Bates. The Democratic prosecutor endorsed Dixon on Monday just days after going public with what he called a growing rift between himself and the mayor over crime-fighting strategy.

Only 28% of voters polled said they see a decrease in crime in the city. Of those voters, however, a large majority gave credit to Scott, as opposed to Bates, Police Commissioner Richard Worley or U.S. Attorney Erek Barron.

“The credit is not getting spread around,” Raabe said. “That’s a messaging point for (Scott). He can talk about that. That doesn’t mean he can make people feel differently about crime, but he can certainly talk about what he’s doing.”

OpinionWorks has conducted polls for the newspaper since 2007.

Poll respondent Ayana Malone, a 49-year-old resident of Northeast Baltimore, said she supports Scott because she appreciates that he’s younger and has different perspectives. Malone said she hasn’t felt any shift in crime, but any mayor will need more time in office to move the needle, she said.

“If there’s no consistency, nobody gets a chance to get past the opening phases of proving themselves,” she said. “Give somebody a chance. Let’s give the man a chance. He has some interesting ideas.”

Malone said Scott, 40, brought a fresh perspective to the squeegee worker issue, a decades-old practice in which young city residents wash windshields for money. Squeegee work became a flashpoint during Scott’s term after a driver who swung a bat at squeegee workers was killed. Scott convened a squeegee collaborative, which implemented an enforcement plan but also connected youths with alternative jobs and services.

“He’s younger. He’s male. He understands why those guys might be out there,” Malone said of Scott. “He has an alternative besides just get rid of them, arrest them, get them off the street. They’re just going to come back.”

To win, the 70-year-old Dixon will have to overcome any lingering concerns about her exit from office. In 2010, the then-mayor was found guilty of embezzling gift cards meant for the poor, and as part of a plea agreement to a perjury charge, she resigned. Dixon opened her 2024 campaign with a public mea culpa, publishing an apologetic op-ed in The Sun.

Poll respondent Lonnie Walker, CEO of JOY Baltimore, a nonprofit that supports runaway and homeless youth, said there’s a misperception that Dixon’s ethical lapses happened when she was mayor. They stemmed from her time as City Council president, he argued. Nothing “egregious” happened during her mayoral term, he said.

“I’ve always thought she’s been the right person for the office,” Walker said. “For me, she has no strikes as the mayor.”

Dixon was City Council president from 1999 to 2007, then was mayor for three years until she had to leave office.

Walker, 52, said he hopes Dixon will hire more police officers, close down the Safe Streets violence intervention program and fix the public school system. He said he’s frustrated when, through his work, he encounters children who are struggling in school. “I see it every day,” he said. Baltimore’s mayor appoints nine of the 12 city school board members.

Scott has the most cash on hand entering the final weeks of the race. He reported a balance of $907,000 on Tuesday, nearly double that of Dixon’s $497,000 in available funds. Vignarajah reported a strong boost from Baltimore’s newly established fair election fund. Of his roughly $548,000 balance, more than $450,000 was public matching funds. Vignarajah expects to collect another $150,000 in matching funds.

While the 2024 mayoral race is a rematch of 2020, the new factor is Scott’s incumbency, Willis said. That’s almost certainly an advantage, he said.

“Every day he’s at a school, he’s at a community meeting. He’s out naturally as any big-city mayor should be, interacting with people,” Willis said. “The margin last time was 3,000 votes, and I would think that using incumbency will allow him to grow that a little bit.”

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(Baltimore Sun reporter Sam Janesch contributed to this article.)

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