State Attorney General J. Joseph Curran Jr. is leading challenger Richard D. Bennett just days before Tuesday's election, although Mr. Bennett remains within striking distance, a new poll shows.
Another Democratic incumbent, Louis L. Goldstein, continues to hold a wide lead against Republican Timothy R. Mayberry in the race for state comptroller.
A Mason-Dixon Political Media Research poll released yesterday shows Mr. Curran, a Democrat, with 47 percent of the vote and his Republican challenger with 35 percent. Eighteen percent are undecided.
The margin of error is plus or minus 3.5 percentage points.
Mr. Bennett, a former top federal prosecutor for Maryland, has not significantly narrowed the gap in the past three weeks
although he still has time to do so.
"Curran has the edge, but I think it's going to be a lot closer on Tuesday than today," Mason-Dixon president Brad Coker said. "I think there's an outside chance that Bennett pulls it off if Sauerbrey wins."
L Ellen R. Sauerbrey is the Republican candidate for governor.
Mason-Dixon surveyed 832 regular voters statewide Wednesday and Thursday in a telephone poll for The Sun and other news organizations.
The race for attorney general has focused in its final days on crime, even though the state Constitution limits the crime-fighting powers of the job.
Unlike his federal counterpart, the Maryland attorney general does not control front-line prosecutors, police or prisons. His duties are to provide legal advice to state government, represent the state when convicted criminals appeal, and prosecute Medicaid fraud.
Nonetheless, "both candidates have to some extent tried to outdo each other in terms of toughness" on crime, said James Gimpel, an assistant political science professor at University of Maryland College Park.
A television commercial for Mr. Bennett hits Mr. Curran, who is seeking a third term, on the crime rate. "While he politicked as attorney general, Maryland became the second most dangerous state," the Bennett ad says.
Meanwhile, a television ad for Mr. Curran picks apart Mr. Bennett's record as a prosecutor. "Dick Bennett talks tough on crime, but what has he really done? As U.S. attorney, Bennett plea bargained away 93 percent of his cases," it says.
In an interview Mr. Bennett said he did not know how many times he accepted plea bargains with criminals. But he noted that Mr. Curran recognized the necessity of plea bargains in a debate.
"They are necessary at some times, but not at the 93 percent rate," responded Curran campaign official Cheryl Benton. The rate under Mr. Bennett was higher than the rates in Virginia and Washington, D.C., she said.
In the other race surveyed by Mason-Dixon, Comptroller Goldstein is shown leading his Republican challenger, 56 percent to 29 percent, with 15 percent undecided.