Maryland’s Democratic Senate primary will test the power of self-funding as a congressman who’s loaned his campaign more than $61 million faces off Tuesday against a county executive who could become just the third Black woman elected to the Senate.
But the race between three-term Rep. David Trone and Prince George’s County Executive Angela Alsobrooks isn’t just about the future of the Democratic Party in Maryland; it will set up a general election matchup for a seat Democrats cannot afford to lose if they’re to retain their Senate majority this fall.
Popular former Gov. Larry Hogan is heavily favored to win the Republican Senate nod on Tuesday. And that would make for a competitive fall campaign to succeed retiring Democratic Sen. Ben Cardin in a state that backed Joe Biden in 2020 by one of the largest margins in the country. With Republicans already poised to pick up a Senate seat in West Virginia, Hogan’s entrance into the Maryland race earlier this year shook up the Senate battlefield.
“It has made all of us Democrats wake up and pay close attention to this race,” Maryland Rep. Jamie Raskin, who has endorsed Alsobrooks, said at a get-out-the-vote event with his fellow Democrat in Silver Spring earlier this month.
Trone, the co-owner of Total Wine & More, has argued that he’s best positioned to defeat Hogan and many of his ads have highlighted the GOP threat. “Only one seat stands between losing a woman’s right to choose,” a recent ad says, “and only one candidate can stop it.”
His money is a big part of that pitch, especially with national Democrats needing to defend vulnerable incumbents in tougher states.
“We’re going to continue to spend whatever it takes to win,” Trone told reporters last week when asked if he would invest his own…
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