Maryland Democrats appeared to make history Tuesday by nominating a Black woman to be their standard-bearer in the U.S. Senate race against the former Republican governor. Larry Hogan in November.
With 97% of districts reporting, the Prince George’s County Executive Angela Alsobrooks took 54% of the vote to 42% for Rep. David Trone (D-6th), ending a bitter campaign and the most expensive Senate primary in state history.
Alsobrooks will face Hogan in November, a rare major Senate general election in Maryland. In unofficial results, the former governor defeated his closest challenger, former state delegate and frequent candidate Robin Ficker, 62% to 30%. The GOP primary was called for Hogan less than an hour after the polls closed.
Hogan and Alsobrooks will fight for the right to replace three-term Sen. Ben Cardin (D), who is stepping down after a 58-year career in politics.
Democrats expected filling the seat would be easy; Republicans won Maryland’s last Senate election in 1980. But Hogan’s entry into the race – the Feb. 9 filing deadline – transformed the political landscape of the state’s general election and made eligibility in November a important part of Trone and Alsobrooks’ proposals for Democratic Voters.
The Democratic Senate Campaign Committee wasted no time, announcing a campaign Tuesday night targeting Hogan as a “lifelong Republican” whose election could give control of the Senate to the GOP. The longtime Republican phrase was repeated by Alsobrooks during her victory speech, in which she said a Hogan victory could give Republicans the majority they need in the Senate to pass national abortion restrictions and appoint anti-choice judges.
And Hogan wasted no time in presenting his proposal to Democrats and independent voters. On stage at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Annapolis, Hogan appealed to the coalition that helped him win two elections in a state where registered Democrats have a roughly 2-1 advantage.
Former Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan (R) greets supporters in Annapolis Tuesday night before declaring victory in the 2024 U.S. Senate Republican primary. Photo by Bryan P. Sears.
“To my Democrat and Independent friends tonight, you know me. You know my proven track record of reaching across the aisle to find common ground for the common good,” Hogan said. “You know I won’t be just another Republican on Capitol Hill.
“You know I have the courage to put people above politics and to put country above party,” he said. “And you know I will face the current president, the former president, the Democratic Party or the Republican Party.”
Hogan is sure to face a barrage of attacks from Democrats in a year when both abortion and donald trump are on the November ballot, along with control of the Senate.
In the Democratic campaign, Alsobrooks leveraged the strength of the party establishment’s support for her victory over Trone’s millions in self-financed campaign spending.
“Money can’t buy love,” Lt. Gov. Aruna Miller (D) told an enthusiastic crowd of Alsobrooks supporters at an election night watch party at Martin’s Crosswinds in Greenbelt.
Maryland’s Senate race is already the most expensive election in the state’s history, shaped largely by Trone’s ability to self-finance his campaign with almost no limitations. Trone spent at least $61.77 million of his own money on the race, according to campaign finance records.
Alsobrooks raised a healthy $7.8 million, helped in the final 10 days of the campaign by a $2.5 million ad buy from Women Vote, a political action committee affiliated with EMILY’s List. But it was no match for Trone’s unusual financial advantage. Trone was on the air months before Alsobrooks and was able to target his message — on TV and radio, in digital ads and in campaign mailers — to distinct segments of the Democratic electorate.
But Trone’s huge financial advantage wasn’t enough. While the crowd at Trone’s election night party at Baltimore’s Museum of Industry was rowdy after polls closed, things began to calm down around 10 p.m. when returns began to fall in Alsobrooks’ favor. At 10:45 a.m., Trone was giving a quick concession speech, in which he told his supporters to “come together as a party” and support Alsobrooks, without mentioning her by name.
“I called my opponent. We talked. I agreed and wished him good luck. He offered our support,” Trone said. “And I need all of you to come together to support the Democratic Party so we can keep the U.S. Senate.”
He left without answering questions after his three-minute speech.
Alsobrooks said he spoke with Trone and “we are united in our focus on keeping the Senate blue and I am grateful to have his support.”
Experts say she’ll need it: Despite a nearly 2-to-1 advantage in Democratic voter registration in Maryland, Alsobrooks will again count on the support of the Democratic establishment to defeat Hogan, who has twice been elected to statewide office.
U.S. Rep. David Trone (D) awards Prince George’s County Executive Angela Alsobrooks (D) the Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate on May 14, 2024. Photo by Danielle J. Brown.
Todd Eberly, a political science professor at St. Mary’s College of Maryland, said Tuesday afternoon that Hogan won two terms as governor by winning Democratic votes, and had a message for Democrats who supported Trone.
“They have a choice: reunite and do it sincerely, or look to Maryland, perhaps deciding control of the Senate for the Republicans, electing Larry Hogan,” Eberly said. “I mean, the price of not unifying is very high.”
Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-5th), who easily won his re-election primary on Tuesday, said Trone or Alsobrooks could defeat Hogan, but “Angela was the strongest candidate we could run to fill this seat. People today said she was the strong candidate, they said ‘Amen. Amen. Amen.'”
Outside the polling place at Dr. High School in Upper Marlboro, where Alsobrooks began her day, Brandi Petway said one of the reasons she voted for the county executive was the looming fight for abortion rights.
“What better person to talk about women’s issues than a woman?” asked Petway, a human resources employee at Giant Food in Jessup. “She is a strong woman. She has a very strong personality and is not afraid to speak out about issues we all feel strongly about.”
Hogan will certainly face questions about abortion access in a year when Maryland voters will be asked to approve a constitutional amendment guaranteeing a woman’s right to the procedure. There is also concern that Republican control of the House and Senate could lead to a national law that limits access.
Hogan, a longtime Republican, has repeatedly disavowed former President Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee for 2024. But he also said he would hold a caucus with his own party if elected.
A Catholic, Hogan said he personally opposes abortion, but he won the governorship twice, skillfully avoiding the issue, saying it was settled law and that he would not try to change state abortion laws passed more than 30 years ago.
But he also vetoed legislation that would have expanded training for abortion providers. When that veto was overturned, he withheld $3.5 million in state funding for training. Gov. Wes Moore (D) released the money as one of his first acts after being sworn into office.
Hogan addressed the issue Tuesday night.
“Let me once again set the record straight tonight, to the women of Maryland, you have my word that I will continue to protect your right to make your own reproductive health decisions,” he said.
Prince George’s County Executive Angela Alsobrooks is joined on stage by Maryland Governor Wes Moore (D) and other members of the state’s federal delegation, May 14, 2024. Photo by William J. Ford.
Hogan’s victory in the seven-candidate primary was not unexpected. During the campaign, Hogan largely ignored his six opponents, including Ficker, who invested more than $4 million of his own money in the race.
Ficker, whose defeat on Tuesday was his 22nd failed campaign, emphasized his support for Trump, while Hogan focused on emphasizing his own brand of Republican politics.
Hogan repeatedly reached out to the more than 113,000 Republicans who requested mail-in ballots. In videos and social media messages, Hogan encouraged voters to return their ballots before polls close on Tuesday. Eberly, the political science professor, said this ran counter to Trump’s 2020 insistence “on the absurdity that you can’t trust mail-in voting.”
“As a result, MAGA voters tend to vote on Election Day. Well, Larry Hogan isn’t looking for their vote. Larry Hogan is looking for the moderate, traditional Republican people who don’t spend their days lost in conspiracy theories about voter fraud and everything else,” Eberly said.
A senior Hogan campaign official downplayed the idea that they were trying to appeal to an anti-Trump wing of the party with vote-by-mail appeals, saying that mail-in voters are more likely to return their ballots and represent more of a “captive ”. public.”
“I feel pretty confident that we will do well with early voting and on election day,” the campaign manager told reporters.
Meanwhile, Yvette Lewis, former Maryland Democratic Party chair and Alsobrooks supporter, said hurting Democrats need to “pick up the phone tomorrow morning and start making calls and mending fences. That’s what I always did the day after the election,” she said shortly after the polls closed on Tuesday night.
“The last thing we can do is win in November,” Lewis said. “That [primary] it was a battle. This was not war. War is coming.”
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