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ANNAPOLIS, Md. (AP) — Angela Alsobrooks won a U.S. Senate seat on Tuesday to become the first Black candidate to be elected senator in Maryland, as the Democrat prevailed in a blue state against popular Republican former Gov. Larry Hogan.
The race had been widely watched with control of the Senate potentially at stake.
Alsobrooks campaigned heavily on abortion rights in a year that Maryland voters approved a ballot measure to enshrine abortion rights in the state constitution.
Alsobrooks, who is the chief executive of Prince George’s County in the suburbs of the nation’s capital, told supporters that her neighbors hosted a pep rally for her as she left home on Tuesday. She said that’s the county she has known, “the people who cheer each other on, where greatness grows.”
“At times we struggle together, and we work to build a better future for all of our children,” Alsobrooks said. “And to those Marylanders whose support I have yet to earn, I may not have won your vote, but I want you to know that I hear your voice, and I will be your senator, too.”
Hogan, speaking to supporters in Annapolis, said he congratulated Alsobrooks on her victory and that “we can all take pride” in electing Alsobrooks as the first Black U.S. senator in Maryland.
“Now is the time for us to come together and to move forward as one state and one nation, to respect the will of the voters and the outcome of the democratic process,” Hogan said.
Alsobrooks won the clear support of women, Black and Latino voters, urban voters and college graduates over Hogan, according to AP VoteCast, a sweeping survey of more than 3,700 voters in the state. Even though Alsobrooks underperformed Vice President Kamala Harris among suburban and moderate voters, majorities backed her over Hogan in the heavily blue state.
Alsobrooks deftly used television ads to emphasize that the race could determine Senate control, putting Maryland in the unusual position of a potential swing state in a year of high political stakes.
Voters for Alsobrooks frequently mentioned the significance of fending off a challenge by the popular Republican in order to keep the seat blue with the control of the Senate potentially at stake.
“I don’t want to see the Senate go Republican,” said Donald Huber, a 72-year-old Democrat voting in Annapolis on Tuesday. “Simple as that. I don’t want to see it turn.”
Alsobrooks supporters noted she would bring greater diversity to the Senate, and they said she is better positioned to address problems facing the state and the nation.
“Angela is really down-to-earth, and she has real solutions, real answers, to the real problems, and I feel Hogan does not have that,” said Zack Buster, a 22-year-old Democrat from Glen Burnie, who voted for Alsobrooks during the early voting period.
Maryland Gov. Wes Moore, a Democrat and the state’s first Black governor, said the state is better because of Alsobrooks and that the U.S. Congress will be better because of her presence, too.
“Angela Alsobrooks will fight every single day for the values we cherish as Americans – from the ability to have economic mobility and own more than you owe, to the freedom of feeling safe in your own skin and your own community, to having control over personal health care decisions,” the governor said after her victory.
Hogan supporters cited his performance in office as one of the main reasons they voted for him.
“I thought he did a really good job as governor, and I like the idea that I think he’ll be independent and try to work both sides, whereas I think the lady, Alsobrooks, I think she would have just been a rubber stamp for the Democrats,” said Dale Schulz, a 79-year-old Annapolis resident, after voting Tuesday in Annapolis.
Hogan, who has been one of former President Donald Trump’s fiercest Republican critics, campaigned on providing an independent voice in Washington. But Alsobrooks challenged that constantly in her ads, which included video clips of the former governor saying he opposed abortion and praising the Supreme Court justices who enabled Roe v. Wade to be struck down in 2022.
While a Republican has not won a Senate race in Maryland in more than 40 years, Hogan was the most formidable candidate fielded by the GOP in the state in years. The two-term former governor had won over enough Democratic voters to win two statewide races in 2014 and 2018 in a state where Democrats outnumber Republicans 2-1.
Still, Hogan had a difficult needle to thread. This election was the first time Hogan ran on the same ballot as Trump, who is deeply unpopular in Maryland.
Alsobrooks also campaigned on gun control. Vice President Kamala Harris, a friend of Alsobrooks, made a campaign stop in Maryland for her, where they both spoke about the significance of taking action against gun violence.
Since 2018, Alsobrooks, 53, has served as the county executive of Prince George’s County, Maryland’s second most populous jurisdiction in the suburbs of the nation’s capital. Before that, she served as the county’s top prosecutor.
“We created more businesses,” she said in AP interview in September about her local government experience. “I’ll be doing that for the whole state and transferring the skills that I have developed not just as executive, but as chief law enforcement officer as the prosecutor in Prince George’s County.”
Brian Witte, The Associated Press