(CN) — Maryland voters will soon be tasked with deciding who will compete to fill Democratic Senator Ben Cardin’s soon-to-be-vacant seat in a race that could determine the makeup of the narrowly divided upper chamber.
Cardin, a 78-year-old three-term senator, announced his decision not to seek reelection in May 2023, opening the seat for the first time since 2006 when he was elected to the Senate after serving 20 years in the House of Representatives.
The race to fill his seat begins May 14, when Marylanders will vote in the state’s primary and determine November’s matchup against likely Republican nominee Larry Hogan, the former governor of the state.
Representative David Trone, who since 2019 has represented the state’s 6th District, entered the race to fill Cardin’s seat soon after the Senator announced his retirement. He’s competing against fellow Democrat Angela Alsobrooks, Prince George’s County's former executive and state’s attorney.
Trone, who co-founded and owns the country's largest independent alcohol retailer, Total Wine & More, has run a primarily self-funded campaign. Of the $42.4 million he had raised as of March 31, $41.7 million came from a personal loan Trone made to his campaign, according to Federal Election Commission filings. Funding for Trone's campaign comes in second place among 2024 Senate candidates to Texas Republican Senator Ted Cruz, who has raised $51.2 million.
Trone has touted his campaign as independent from influence by political action committees, lobbyists and corporations, noting on his campaign website that he has “never taken a nickel” from such groups.
Todd Eberly, professor of political science at St. Mary’s College of Maryland, said in an interview with Courthouse News that Trone’s wealth has been an advantage since he entered the race.
“He has higher name recognition,” Eberly said. “He’s running ads that are hitting every corner of the state with regard to the market. And they’ve been running since last fall.”
Meanwhile, Alsobrooks has had to play catchup. Her campaign has raised $7.2 million, FEC filings show, and she has only just begun running political ads.
Alsobrooks’s campaign got a boost from Democratic establishment endorsements including those of Maryland Governor Wes Moore and Democratic Senator Chris Van Hollen. But that's no match, Eberly said, for Trone’s “advertising extravaganza."
Polling reflects that disparity: Alsobrooks trails Trone 48% to 29%, according to an April 10 Baltimore Sun poll.
Alsobrooks has tried to use Trone’s wealth against him, taking notes from previous rivals, but Eberly doubted the approach would be effective.
“If anything, it's a wash,” Eberly said. “You’ve got some folks who don't like the idea of ‘buying and election.’ The flip side of that is that you got folks who like that fact that because you can self-finance, you can’t be bought.”
Alsobrooks has also highlighted a 50% drop in violent crime in Prince George’s County during her stint as its state’s attorney from January 2011 to December 2018.
And she points to her role in establishing a unit to investigate and prosecute police misconduct in late 2022. Alsobrooks was the first woman to serve in her county executive seat and the first Black woman elected to the office in the state's history.
The winner of next month’s primary will likely face Hogan, the Republican frontrunner who leads former Maryland State Delegate Robin Ficker 69% to 9% according to an April 10 Baltimore Sun poll. According to FEC filings, Hogan has raised approximately $1.9 million for his campaign.
Hogan’s entry transformed the race. It places outsize focus on Maryland in the national conversation surrounding the November election, as swing states like Arizona, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin regularly receive when a Senate seat is up for grabs.
“Ordinarily, folks would have just ignored Maryland because the Democratic nominee was guaranteed to win,” Eberly said. “Maryland wasn’t on that list until Hogan said that he was running.”
Hogan served two terms as governor, from 2015 until 2023, and left office as one of the most popular governors in the country with a 77% approval rating. After his second term ended, Hogan was viewed as a potential contender for the Republican nomination for president, but announced in March 2023 he would not seek the nomination.
In January 2024, after months of speculation that he may run as a third-party candidate, Hogan endorsed Nikki Haley, saying she would have a better chance of beating President Joe Biden than Donald Trump or Ron DeSantis.
In announcing his campaign to take Cardin’s seat, Hogan said he decided to run “not to serve one party, but to try to be part of the solution: to fix our nation’s broken politics and fight for Maryland.”
Hogan, who campaigned for governor as a moderate Republican, became an outspoken critic of Trump during his presidency, recently saying he would not vote for Trump in November. He faces an uphill battle in the state as he aims to become the first Republican in over 40 years to win a Senate seat where Democrats outnumber Republicans by a two-to-one ratio.
That may hurt his chances in November, Eberly said, as many Maryland Republicans still support the former president. In 2022, Kelly Schulz, whom Hogan selected to succeed him as governor, lost the GOP primary to Trump-endorsed Dan Cox.
Additionally, Hogan faces an entirely different electorate in November where more voters are expected to turn out than his gubernatorial races in 2014 and 2018, Eberly said. This year's race will be the first he's run during a presidential election.
Unlike his gubernatorial races, Hogan will have to contend with more national issues, including a ballot initiative to protect abortion access in the state, an issue that has repeatedly hurt GOP candidates in battleground states.
Further, Eberly said the fact that Joe Biden will likely win the state by a wide margin and the contest’s potential to decide control of the Senate will only add further obstacles to a Hogan victory.
Between the two Democratic candidates, Eberly said Trone and his extensive resources will have “absolutely no problem” fending off Hogan’s challenge. However, Alsobrooks could appeal to the Democratic base, as she is more “reflective of what the Democratic Party in Maryland looks like.”
Either way, Hogan is likely the GOP’s best bet to swipe Maryland’s Senate seat away from the Democrats because of his unique electoral success in the widely Democratic state, Eberly said.
Again pointing to Schulz’s defeat, he said it seems unlikely that GOP voters in the state would vote for another moderate candidate any time soon, and any Trump-endorsed candidate will Riley “get blown out of the water” in a general election.
Outside the Senate, Marylanders are also set to vote in three House races in the 3rd, 5th and 6th Districts, each of which are heavily favored to remain in Democratic hands.
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