Deep-blue Maryland has been a stronghold for Democrats in general elections for decades. But with a popular former Republican governor running for an open Senate seat and eight House races, the Old Line State could spring a few surprises this November. In this series, Old Line, New Battles: Maryland feels the primary pinch, the Washington Examiner will look at the key figures and important issues six months until election day. Part Two will focus on the Democratic Senate primary.
The Democratic primary for an open Senate seat in Maryland is shaping up to be one of the most contentious races of the 2024 cycle, driving a wedge between Democrats as they split on who should replace Sen. Ben Cardin (D-MD) and maintain their slim majority in the upper chamber.
The general election is not considered to be particularly competitive and is expected to favor the Democratic nominee, raising the stakes of the May primary as the party struggles to coalesce around a single candidate. The winner will go on to face former Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan, whose candidacy Republicans are hoping will tip the race in their favor.
Maryland’s May 14 primaries will feature a faceoff between Rep. David Trone (D-MD) and Prince George’s County Executive Angela Alsobrooks, a contest that has devolved into some of the bitterest infighting among Democrats ahead of the 2024 election.
Trone secured an early advantage after announcing his Senate bid last year, attracting widespread support among House Democratic leaders such as Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) and Whip Katherine Clark (D-MA).
Trone was lauded as a strong candidate largely because of his ability to self-fund his campaign. Since then, the Maryland Democrat has poured tens of millions of dollars from his own pockets to keep his campaign afloat, dominating Alsobrooks in the polls.
But Alsobrooks has also received high-profile endorsements from a majority of the Maryland House delegation, a blow to Trone who works alongside them in the lower chamber representing the state’s 6th Congressional District.
The hotly contested primary has become even more competitive in recent weeks due to a slew of controversial comments by Trone, prompting many of his Democratic colleagues in the House to turn against him.
Trone apologized in March after using a racial slur during a House Budget Committee meeting, drawing widespread scrutiny among Democratic lawmakers and prompting several of them to throw their support behind Alsobrooks. Shortly after those comments, several members of the Congressional Black Caucus endorsed Alsobrooks’s campaign, as well as several other high-profile Democratic lawmakers.
Trone later came under fire for other comments, including a jab at Prince George’s County officials who endorsed Alsobrooks as being “low-level.”
With just days until the primary election, campaign ads between the two have increasingly turned negative. Trone was the first to air an attack ad against Alsobrooks, featuring comments from a black local official who said the Senate “is not a place for training wheels,” a phrase that prompted backlash for its “tones of misogyny and racism.”
Trone later removed the line from the ad after receiving a letter signed by more than 650 black women decrying the ad as offensive.
The comments have also made some lawmakers on Capitol Hill uneasy, creating some tension among Maryland Democrats.
“I’ll be glad when the primary’s behind us; I’ll say it that way,” Rep. Glenn Ivey (D-MD), who endorsed Alsobrooks, said. “Whatever hard feelings there might be after this primary, I think they’ll be cleared up quickly.”
Meanwhile, Alsobrooks has taken aim at Trone’s wealth, referencing the millions he has spent to fund his campaign on multiple occasions.
After Trone accused Alsobrooks of spending her career “working her way up the ladder from one political job to the next” during an interview with NBC4 Washington, Alsobrooks rebuked his comment, saying she doesn’t “begrudge people who earn money, even if they do so selling liquor.”
“To allow the person with the most money to buy an election, that is a very dangerous precedent, and I don’t think Marylanders are going to allow it,” Alsobrooks said to the outlet.
Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-MD), the former No. 2 Democrat in the House, is the latest to throw his support behind Alsobrooks, lauding her “qualifications, temperament, and skills” as a county executive. Hoyer also made an apparent swipe at Trone in his endorsement despite not referring to his fellow House Democrat by name.
“Making demeaning attacks against Angela only divides our party at a time when maintaining unity is more important than ever,” Hoyer said in a statement. “I have never been more certain that Angela is the right choice for Maryland.”
However, Trone’s campaign remains confident in his chances to be elected, framing him as the best candidate to take on Hogan in November.
“We can’t take anything for granted, and we can’t sit on the sidelines in this election,” the campaign told the Washington Examiner in a statement. “That’s why we’ll spend these final days doing what we’ve done since day one: listening to voters, understanding the challenges they face, and sharing our message of getting things done.”
A poll from the Washington Post in late March found Trone with a slim lead over Alsobrooks in the primary. However, a large bloc of nearly 40% of Democratic voters were undecided at the time, the survey showed.
However, an Emerson College Polling/The Hill/DC News Now poll released Thursday showed Alsobrooks leading Trone 42% to 41%, essentially making the pair tied with the poll’s margin of error being plus or minus 4.5 percentage points. The poll’s results show that the field is not settled as voters prepare to cast their ballots.
Whoever emerges from the primary will face a strong challenger in Hogan, who leads Trone and Alsobrooks in hypothetical matchups between the two, according to the poll. However, the seat is predicted to lean Democratic, according to the nonpartisan Cook Political Report, giving the party a boost as it looks to hold on to the seat, prompting some lawmakers to urge their colleagues to move on past any infighting.
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“This is so much bigger than any individual’s ego or career ambitions,” Rep. Jamie Raskin (R-MD) told Axios. “This really is about the future of the country. We cannot afford to lose a Senate seat.”
Alsobrooks’s campaign did not respond to the Washington Examiner’s request for comment.
