Larry Hogan launches a broadside on crime as pivotal Maryland Senate race nears debate

Maryland’s close Senate race is growing increasingly tense as the race enters its final month and polls show the two candidates within single digits of each other.

The battle for retiring Senator Ben Cardin’s seat in the deep-blue state has been close for months, but both parties are showing more and more signs of valuing the race’s importance in the ending stretch. Democrats, backing Prince George’s County Executive Angela Alsobrooks for the seat, just added another $1.1m to her coffers, worried about their party’s flagging candidate in Montana. Republicans, meanwhile, are looking at Senate races in both Florida and Texas with apprehension.

Now, Republican candidate Larry Hogan’s campaign is out with a new ad hitting Alsobrooks on crime and policing reform. Data shows that property crime and violent crime dropped across the state between 2012 and 2022. In Alsobrooks’ backyard, however, rates of several types of crime including carjackings and shootings have been stubbornly high for several years; finally seeing some improvement just this year.

The ad is running in Baltimore and Washington DC television markets beginning Tuesday. Alsobrooks and Hogan are slated to debate in just two days on WBAL, the NBC News affiliate, in a discussion moderated by former Meet the Press host Chuck Todd.

Sitting behind the wheel as police cruiser lights illuminate the background, a Prince George’s County Police Department officer blames the county executive in the ad for “releas[ing] violent criminals and drug dealers” and opposing cash bail, while highlighting countywide crime statistics. Alsobrooks has served as Prince George’s chief executive since 2018; the county, like others in Maryland including Baltimore, has struggled to battle rates of some crimes effectively in the wake of the Covid pandemic, which saw rates of crime spike nationally.

“As a Prince George’s County Police officer under Angela Alsobrooks, here’s what you should know,” says the woman, whose name is not displayed.

She finishes: “Larry Hogan, he has our backs. And that’s why Maryland police unanimously endorsed him.”

Complicating the issue: commonly abbreviated as “PG” County, Prince George’s lies in the shadow of the nation’s capital, which has fought its own struggles with crime including a surge in carjackings for several years. Some Maryland officials have also argued that the state’s laws governing the response to crimes committed by juveniles prevent effective enforcement. In one high-profile case from neighboring Montgomery County, a 12-year-old boy too young to face criminal charges stands accused of a string of vehicle thefts from car dealerships.

But that isn’t to say that there’s not more at play here, too. Another reason why Alsobrooks finds herself targeted by these attacks is her own personal failure to build stronger political alliances around the state as well as within her own county. A number of PG County officials — including, notably, State’s Attorney Aisha Braveboy, one of the faces of crime prevention in the area — backed her opponent, David Trone, over Alsobrooks in the Democratic primary.

And while her Democratic allies have come home to roost, her Republican opponent remains endorsed by the state Fraternal Order of Police.

The Democrat was out with a new ad ahead of the debate on Tuesday as well. However, hers was focused on testimonials from voters who previously supported Hogan’s bids for governor. Having left office with an approval rating in the 70s, Hogan is seeking to win over the Democrats and independents who supported him — while Alsobrooks is arguing that GOP control over the Senate lies in the balance.

A new survey of the state released on Monday by the University of Maryland Baltimore County’s Institute of Politics will likely be the last data for the candidates to pick over before they meet onstage on Thursday. While it didn’t survey voters about the Senate race directly, it still contained interesting perspectives on state politics.

The national Democratic Party brand continues to enjoy significantly higher popularity in the state, an obvious boon for Alsobrooks as she runs closely aligned with Kamala Harris, the top of her party’s ticket. Conversely, just over a third of voters in the state had a positive view of the national GOP. Hogan, unsurprisingly, has sought to distance himself from Magaworld even more than his past support for Donald Trump’s impeachment already did.

UMBC’s survey also showed a largely positive view of the job performance of Democratic Governor Wes Moore, though nowhere close to the kind of approval ratings Hogan himself was seen near the end of his second term as governor. But Moore’s popularity will likely boost Alsobrooks as well; he was an early endorser.