Democrat Angela Alsobrooks has won Maryland’s Senate race, NBC News projects, defeating popular former Republican Gov. Larry Hogan and becoming the first Black woman elected to represent the state in the Senate.
The unusually competitive contest to replace retiring Democratic Sen. Ben Cardin was always a must-win for Democrats, who are trying to hang onto their Senate majority. It also means that, for the first time in history, Maryland will have a Black senator, governor and mayor of its largest city, Baltimore.
Alsobrooks’ victory, along with Democratic Sen.-elect Lisa Blunt Rochester’s in Delaware, also means that the Senate will have two Black women next year for the first time in history.
“We are looking at a time that is like a time we’ve never seen before,” Alsobrooks told NBC News on the campaign trail in August. “This election will help us decide the kind of future we want for our children and grandchildren and what kind of state and country we will build for them.”
The county executive in Prince George’s County, Alsobrooks handily won the Democratic primary this year despite being outspent 10-to-1 by Rep. David Trone. Campaign spending only ballooned from there, with both Alsobrooks and Hogan spending tens of millions of dollars to sway voters in a state President Joe Biden won by more than 30 points in 2020.
“I think it’s wonderful having her in the Senate. She’s eminently qualified. She’ll do a great job for her state and for the people of the country, former Sen. Carol Moseley Braun, D-Ill., told NBC News this fall.
Polls consistently showed Alsobrooks pulling ahead in the weeks before the election. Hogan could never quite replicate the support he received from Democrats as governor in his Senate campaign. In his two terms as governor and as a Senate candidate, Hogan tried to distance himself from former President Donald Trump, going so far as to reject an endorsement.
But sharing the Republican column with Trump on the ballot appeared to be a bridge too far for those Democrats who had once been willing to vote for Hogan, said David Lublin, chair of the department of government at American University.
“I don’t think he’ll win precisely because of the reluctance of Democrats who might be willing to vote for him at the state level to give him a try at the federal level,” Lublin said before the election. “Frankly, the sad thing in this case is that the Senate could use more moderates, and more moderate Republicans.”
The race stood out to Lublin because, in a national political environment marked by one unprecedented event after another, he felt it maintained a relative degree of normalcy — or at least what was deemed normal a decade ago. In Hogan, many Marylanders saw a Republican who represented an increasingly rare version of the party prior to Trump’s takeover. And Alsobrooks has been “embraced by the Democratic establishment” as a liberal who “doesn’t come off as unrealistic,” according to Lublin.
“In many ways it’s like an old-fashioned race because neither party is running someone extreme,” he said. “We’re not going to be voting simply for the person we hate the least. These are both good politicians.”
But national narratives have still managed to make their way into the race, according to Candace Turitto, director of the University of Maryland’s applied political analytics program.
“Alsobrooks’ main attack on Hogan has still been to paint him as a member nonetheless of this more extreme Republican party who would ultimately be a vote promoting a far-right agenda,” Turitto said in an email to NBC News before the election. “Hogan’s public record does not lead to that conclusion in my opinion, but that message is likely a successful one when voters consider the totality of their ballot.”
Alsobrooks’ election is also historic in showing the “increasing normalcy” of electing Black politicians, Lublin said.
In Maryland alone, Wes Moore, the state’s first Black governor, and Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott, both Democrats, gained national attention after the collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge in March. Moore, in particular, is seen as a rising star in the national party.
“In Maryland, there’s a tacit feeling among many Democrats that, just like it was time to elect our first Black governor, it’s past time to elect our first Black senator,” Lublin said.
