Captain Larry’s, the small bar in South Baltimore’s Riverside neighborhood, was packed wall to wall on a Thursday night. Some people spilled onto the sidewalk through the open door. The crowd formed a circle around Prince George’s County Executive Angela Alsobrooks, the Democratic nominee to fill Maryland’s soon-to-be-vacant seat in the U.S. Senate, as she delivered a version of her stump speech. She touched on a range of issues, from Baltimore’s once-promised Red Line to reproductive rights, before turning to what seemed to be the crux of her message.
“What we know is that this election, so that we are level-setting, is not about whether or not we like my opponent, whether he's a nice guy, whether he should have been elected as governor, but the question we are answering in this election is who should have the 51st vote?” she said to applause.
The event was part of what Alsobrooks’ campaign calls the “Defend Our Majority Tour,” and the idea that this election is about which party controls the Senate, is central to her remarks at each stop.
For example, at an event earlier this month, she referenced a promise her Republican opponent, former Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan, made to vote for a law guaranteeing the right to an abortion — protections once guaranteed by the U.S. Supreme Court in its famous Roe v. Wade decision.
“No matter what he says, If he gives control of the Senate to the Republican Party, there will be no vote on Roe, because the 51st vote would determine whether or not the vote would even happen,” she told a crowded auditorium at the Harriet Tubman Cultural Center in Columbia.
In a statement, Hogan spokesperson Blake Kernan said neither Republicans nor Democrats can count on the former governor’s vote.
“The Alsobrooks campaign wants to reduce this race to a red vs. blue test of party loyalty, instead of who is best qualified to do the job and serve the people,” Kernan wrote. “Maryland voters know Governor Hogan, and they know that in Washington he will be the same pragmatic leader governing in the center as he was in Annapolis.”
When asked about her campaign’s tactic and her focus on which party controls the Senate, Alsobrooks said she is focused not just on party politics, but on the issues.
“We're talking about the issues, but what we know is that the two caucuses have completely different views of it, and whoever controls the Senate does control the agenda, and it is a matter of what direction we go in in our country,” she said. She highlighted not just abortion rights but also gun control laws and the Affordable Care Act among the issues on which the two parties have different visions.
Alsobrooks’ campaign strategy is an improvement on Maryland Democrats’ past unsuccessful efforts to defeat Hogan, said Mileah Kromer, director of the University of Maryland Baltimore County Institute of Politics and the author of a book about Hogan.
For example, when Hogan was running for re-election in 2018, Democrats tried to drag down Hogan’s consistently high approval ratings by linking him to then-President Donald Trump.
Kromer said Alsobrooks’ new tactic targets the roughly 30% of Democrats who voted for Hogan in that governor’s race.
“It gives them the permission to continue to like the governor, but not necessarily cast a vote for him,” Kromer said. “That is going to be crucial for Democrats this time around, is making sure that they educate voters, that when voting for the Senate, they're not just voting for an individual. They're not just voting for Larry Hogan. They're not just voting for Angela Alsobrooks. They're also voting for their member in a large legislative body.”
She said that although the messaging might not follow conventional wisdom about political campaigns, Hogan isn’t a conventional candidate.
Until recently, Kromer ran the Goucher College Poll, which tracked Hogan’s approval ratings for the better part of a decade. His persistent popularity as a Republican governor in a state where Democrats have a two-to-one voter registration advantage gave Hogan a national profile.
“Voters already know Hogan. Their opinions towards him are really baked in, so it is hard to move those attitudes,” Kromer said. “Perhaps an easier or more efficient lift for them is, instead of attacking Larry Hogan as an individual, is to remind voters that he will caucus with the Republican Party.”
Those Democrats who voted for Hogan as governor might like him enough to vote for him for Senate, Kromer said, but giving control of the Senate to the Republican Party might cross a line.