Former Gov. Larry Hogan, the GOP nominee for Senate, at Maryland Public Television on Oct. 10 for the only debate between him and Prince George’s County Executive Angela Alsobrooks, the Democratic nominee. Photo by Michael Ciesielski Photography/Courtesy of MPT.
Prince George’s County Executive Angela Alsobrooks appeared to be on her way to a historic Senate win Tuesday, with early returns giving her a comfortable over Larry Hogan, the popular former governor.
With 60% of the vote counted shortly before 11 p.m., Alsobrooks, a Democrats, had just over 1 million votes to 729,743 for Hogan, a Republican, a 58% to 40% lead. Libertarian Mike Scott had 36,114 votes for 2% of the early total.
The vote culminated a hard-fought, and occasionally bitter, race in which Alsobrooks looked to make history by becoming the first Black woman from Maryland — and one of a handful in U.S. history — to be elected to the Senate, while Hogan looked to recapture the magic that let the Republican be elected governor twice in a heavily Democratic state.
They were running to replace Sen. Ben Cardin (D), who sought not to seek reelection after 58 years in elected office. If early results hold, Alsbrooks would become the first woman senator from Maryland since Democratic Sen. Barbara Mikulksi, who stepped down in 2017; Hogan was seeking to become the first GOP senator from the state since Sen. Charles “Mac” Mathias left in 1987.
The race attracted tens of millions of dollars in outside campaign funding, unusual for Maryland where Republicans are typically given little chance in statewide races. But Hogan’s history of being elected statewide twice, and leaving office in 2022 with high popularity ratings, put the state in play.
The themes were set early in the race and repeated often, with partisanship being a key attack line by the Alsobrooks campaign against Hogan, who was recruited at the last minute by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell to enter the Senate race. Democrats currently hold a one-seat edge in the Senate but are likely to lose control of the chamber in this fall’s elections, a point hammered by Alsobrooks.
Democrats also made abortion rights a central element of their campaign at a time when states — including Maryland — are struggling with abortion rights and restrictions after the Supreme Court in 2022 overturned Roe v. Wade, the nearly 50-year-old case that recognized a right to an abortion. Alsobrooks campaign pointed to Hogan’s history of abortion opposition and his veto of some abortion-rights legislation as governor, and they tried to tie him to former President Donald Trump, who has boasted about appointing three of the six Supreme Court justices who voted to overturn Roe.
The Maryland Democratic Party flooded email inboxes almost daily with two main messages: a vote for Hogan means Republicans control the Senate, which could lead to “extreme” policies, such as a push on a national abortion ban.
That message gave pause to voters like Naekasah Johnson of Prince George’s County, a first-grade math and science teacher who said Tuesday that she voted for Alsobrooks because she was worried about Republican control of the Senate. “Sometimes he [Hogan] could say one thing and then could possibly do something else,” Johnson said.
Hogan pushed back forcefully, against both the abortion rights charges and the claims that he would be a partisan in the Senate.
He said during the one-and-only televised debate with Alsobrooks last month that he would support codifying the protections of Roe v. Wade nationwide, despite being personally anti-abortion. He accused Democrats of mispresenting his record.
Even though he ran as a Republican, Hogan also insisted that he would be in independent voice in the Senate, able to work across party lines as he said he did as governor. Hogan, long a critic of Trump, tried to distance himself from the former president, whom he briefly considered challenging for the presidential nomination in 2020.
In a phone call with reporters Tuesday afternoon, complained about what they called false and misleading advertising directed at Hogan as well as “really dishonest ads” they said misrepresented Hogan’s position on abortion.
“We’re still optimistic and we think that this is going to be a very close race and a long night,” said David Weinman, Hogan’s campaign manager, said Tuesday afternoon.
About $27 million came into the campaign from Maryland’s Future PAC in support of Hogan, with at least $11 million spent mostly on TV and radio ads and mailers that attacked Alsobrooks.
The ads highlighted Alsobrooks’ failure to pay all the property taxes on homes she owned, one of which she rented even though it was listed as her primary residence at the time. Alsobrooks chalked it up to simple mistakes in filing her taxes, and quickly worked with officials in the District of Columbia and Prince George’s County to pay the back taxes.
Democrats responded with a series of attacks on Hogan for land deals the state made while he was governor that benefited his real estate company — deals Hogan and aides insisted were proper and vetted by state ethics officials.
Hogan also questioned Alsobrooks’ effectiveness as Prince George’s County executive and, before that, as the state’s attorney, claiming crime rose under her watch. But it’s unclear how much impact those charges had.
Pollsters suggested that Hogan’s previous magic touch, that allowed him to attract large shares of Democratic and independent voters, were not enough to overcome Maryland voters’ dislike for Trump, who was being beaten soundly in early Maryland returns Tuesday by Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee.
Hogan’s campaign predicted — consistent with that early polling — that he would attract more votes overall than the top of the Republican ticket in Maryland, but that the popular Republican former governor still faced an uphill battle in a “presidential election year in a state not inclined to vote Republican.”
If early results hold, Alsobrooks will become the first Black woman elected to the Senate from Maryland and the first woman since Mikulski, who was the first woman to hold the office from Maryland.
Alsobrooks was also angling to become the just fourth Black women elected to the Senate, with Rep. Lisa Blunt Rochester (D-Del.), who was declared the winner in her race for Senate from Delaware. The two would follow former Sen. Carole Mosely Braun (D-Ill.), elected in 1992, and Harris, who was elected to the Senate from California in 2016.
Victories by Alsobrooks and Rochester would mark the first time the Senate chamber had two elected Black women at the same time.