Prince George’s County Executive Angela Alsobrooks (D) talks to reporters after a campaign event in Greenbelt Monday night. U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-Texas) is on the right. Photo by Josh Kurtz.
Democratic Senate nominee Angela Alsobrooks insisted Monday that she was unaware she received improper property tax credits on two homes and pledged to pay whatever back taxes she owes as soon as possible.
Her statements came one day after the revelation, first reported by CNN, that Alsobrooks, the Prince George’s County executive, improperly took a homestead tax credit on a Prince George’s County home where she no longer lived. The CNN story also said Alsobrooks received a senior citizen’s tax break on a home she once owned in Washington, D.C., that had belonged to her grandparents.
Alsobrooks’ campaign quickly responded by saying she wasn’t aware of the problems until notified by CNN and vowed that her attorneys were working with authorities in the two jurisdictions to make sure she’d pay whatever back taxes she owed as fast as possible. That was echoed by the candidate.
“The reality is, I would never take a tax credit I wasn’t entitled to,” Alsobrooks told reporters Monday night.
This is hardly the first time that a high-profile political candidate with more than one property has been dinged by reports that they sought to claim tax breaks they were not entitled to. The question is whether it has a long-lasting or detrimental impact for Alsobrooks in her race for Senate against former Gov. Larry Hogan (R).
Her advisers say the fact that Alsobrooks was not aware of any problems, and moved to correct them as quickly as she found out about them, should minimize any political damage. But in a close election that has largely remained static for months, any small and unanticipated development could influence the outcome.
Most recent polls have shown Alsobrooks with a small lead, which is unsurprising for this heavily Democratic state. But they also show that she isn’t nearly as well known with voters as Hogan, a two-term former governor who appears to remain popular with the electorate. So this is hardly comes at an ideal time for the Democrat.
“At the very least, it’s a setback for her campaign,” said Paul Ellington, a Maryland Republican strategist. “You’re trying to put forward a positive image and now she’s on the defensive a little bit. It takes her away from the task at hand, which is introducing herself to voters.”
Hogan’s camp wasted little time deriding Alsobrooks for the erroneous tax claims.
“It’s deeply disturbing that Angela Alsobrooks thinks the rules don’t apply to her,” Blake Kernen, a Hogan spokesperson, said in a statement Monday. “She campaigns on raising taxes while failing to pay her own and taking advantage of tax credits reserved for the poor and elderly. She claims to be unaware of tax laws it was her job to enforce.
“Governor Hogan has always stood up for taxpayers and in the Senate he will continue to fight for fairness and fiscal responsibility,” Kernen’s statement said.
Asked Monday night for her reaction to the Hogan campaign’s criticism, Alsobrooks essentially shrugged it off.
“It’s an election season,” she said.
Ellington said the revelations give Hogan an opportunity to “define her,” while Alsobrooks tries to become better known. Other Hogan allies predicted that the subject could generate attack ads by the Hogan campaign or from one of the political action committees supporting him. Axios reported Monday night that a Hogan-aligned super PAC had just reserved $18.3 million in TV ads through Election Day.
But other political professionals questioned whether the Alsobrooks tax reports are politically durable.
“My gut tells me this doesn’t rise to the level of a scandal that shakes up the race,” said Todd Eberly, a political science professor at St. Mary’s College of Maryland.
In certain ways, Eberly said, Alsobrooks’ dilemma isn’t all that unusual, as voters have frequently struggled with the complexities of the tax code.
“You’re talking about a few thousand dollars spread over many years,” he said. “Especially when it comes to Maryland scandals, this wouldn’t even make a footnote in a textbook.”
Some Democratic strategists have gone so far as to suggest that this development illustrates Alsobrooks’ frequent assertion that she’s a member of “the sandwich generation,” taking care of both children and elderly relatives — thus making her relatable to a wide swath of the electorate.
Connor Lounsbury, an Alsobrooks campaign spokesperson, cast the confusion over her tax credits as a result of clerical errors. By not transferring her homestead tax credit from the Prince George’s County property where she once lived to her current home, he said, Alsobrooks actually cost herself money. And the D.C. misfiling, he said, was a reminder to Marylanders of “how difficult and complex it is when a family member needs to leave their home.”
The media reports about Alsobrooks’ taxes did nothing to dampen the enthusiasm at her annual family barbecue, held Monday evening at a catering hall in Greenbelt, which drew a crowd of more than 700 people — and about a dozen reporters.
In addition to the familiar array of Maryland Democrats who usually speak at these events, the Alsobrooks gathering featured speeches from three dynamic national Black leaders: U.S. Sens. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) and Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.) and U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-Texas).
“Angela, we need you in the Senate!” Booker told the crowd.
A few miles away, U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) was scheduled to join a phone bank with pro-Alsobrooks volunteers in Silver Spring on Monday night.
Latest ads provide a snapshot
It’s clear, for better or worse, that the overall storyline of the Alsobrooks-Hogan election has barely changed since the May primaries, which is why a development like the Alsobrooks tax situation could be magnified with so little movement in the race.
Alsobrooks and her allies continue to emphasize Hogan’s party affiliation and the implications of a possible flip in control of the U.S. Senate, where Democrats currently hold a 51-49 majority — especially on reproductive health.
On Monday, the political arm of EMILY’s List, the financial powerhouse that backs Democratic women who support abortion rights, dropped another $2.1 million into the race with a new 30-second TV ad hitting Hogan on abortion. That brings the group’s total investment in the general election to $4.3 million.
The ad features clips of Hogan from prior TV interviews declaring his personal opposition to abortion. It also contains a reminder of his decision, in 2022, to veto a measure that would have accelerated funding to provide training for medical personnel other than physicians to perform abortions in the state.
“We can’t trust Larry Hogan on abortion,” a narrator says at the end of the ad.
Hogan, meanwhile, continues to advance the narrative that he’ll be a fiercely independent member of the Senate, willing to work with — and criticize — members of both parties. That point is reinforced in his campaign’s latest TV ad.
“There are 100 senators,” a narrator says at the top of the ad, over arresting images of shadowy cutout figures in front of the U.S. Capitol, meant to represent senators. “How many can you name? Ten? Five? Who stands out? The ones who make a difference. The critical swing votes who put country over party, people over politics. Like Larry Hogan.”
Hogan, the ad concludes, “will be in the middle of the action.”
The ad also asserts that Hogan “supports Roe,” the abortion rights law that the U.S. Supreme Court overturned in 2022.