Who is Angela Alsobrooks? Barring any unforeseen developments, she probably will be the next United States Senator from the great state of Maryland, the first African American from Maryland to hold the prestigious office, and just the fourth black woman to serve in the Senate. Already a dragonslayer—she handily defeated Democratic rival Congressman David Trone in the May 14 primary, garnering 52.6 percent of votes to Trone’s 43.4 percent—Alsobrooks will take on twice-elected Republican governor Larry Hogan. She racked up 240,611 votes to 187,889 for the three-term congressman representing Maryland’s 6th Congressional District, despite Trone spending $62 million on his campaign from the fortune he amassed as the owner of Total Wine and More. Alsobrooks was outspent $47.5 million to $4 million on television ads.
Alsobrooks vaulted into the spotlight when she threw her hat into the ring, vying for the seat of retiring Sen. Ben Cardin, who has represented Marylanders since 2007. She has been the County Executive for Prince George’s County since 2018, when she became the first woman elected. She previously served as the county’s state attorney from 2010 to 2018. A county native, Alsobrooks graduated from Duke University and the University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law. She got her start in politics as an intern for Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton. Her list of supporters was long and impressive in her quest to secure the Democratic nomination, beginning with Vice President Kamala Harris and including Maryland Governor Wes Moore, Maryland Senator Chris Van Hollen, and numerous Congress members such as Jamie Raskin, Barbara Lee, and Steny Hoyer. She was endorsed by the Washington Post.
Known colloquially as PG County, where I live, it is the second largest in Maryland, with nearly one million residents, second to Montgomery County. It is the largest and second most affluent African American county in the United States. Blacks comprise 60 percent of the population. It hosts many federal government facilities, including Joint Base Andrews and the U.S. Census Bureau. In November 2024, the General Services Administration (GSA) announced plans to locate the new FBI headquarters in Greenbelt, MD, in the heart of PG County. Republican appropriators in Congress are threatening to withhold funds for the project.
The road to the Senate will not be an easy path. Her Republican opponent is twice-elected former Maryland governor Larry Hogan, who left office with a 77 percent approval rating. The son of PG County Executive and Congressman Lawrence Hogan, Sr., he was elected in 2014, defeating then-Lt. Governor Anthony Brown, and became only the second Republican Maryland governor to be re-elected in 2018, defeating former NAACP president Ben Jealous. Like his father, who voted to recommend all three House articles of impeachment against President Richard Nixon, Governor Hogan has been a staunch critic of Donald Trump, demonstrating his bona fides in the predominantly blue state of Maryland.
Hogan’s recent pronouncement encouraging people to accept the verdict in Trump’s election-tampering case drew the ire of top Republican operatives who threatened to withhold financial backing. In the meantime, Alsobrooks will be under pressure to raise money for what could be a very expensive general election as Democrats seek to retain their slim majority. She’s got the backing of MoveOn.org and will invariably attract more national support. Expect black women nationwide to get behind Alsobrooks’s candidacy. Congresswoman Barbara Lee’s unsuccessful bid for Diane Feinstein’s Senate seat will leave the Senate without an African American woman if Alsobrooks and Delaware’s Congresswoman Lisa Blunt Rochester fail in their bids. There are 25 women in the U.S. Senate, and only one, California’s Laphonza R. Butler, is African American. She will leave at the end of her term.
Delaware’s lone member of the House of Representatives, Rep. Blunt Rochester, is favored to win the September 10 Democratic primary. The sister of Rutgers University School of Social Work Associate Professor Marla Blunt Carter and daughter of the late Theodore “Ted” Blunt, she has represented Delaware’s lone congressional district since 2017. She has strong ties with President Joe Biden, who spoke glowingly about her during a 2022 reception. She began her political career as an intern for outgoing Sen. Tom Carper.
Big money, particularly unrestricted anonymous donations or dark money, has infected American politics and often derailed progress toward a functioning multiracial democracy. However, it takes money to conduct a political campaign, and we should support these and other candidates in their efforts to get elected if we believe in their leadership and policy preferences.