Republicans have a rare opportunity to flip a Senate seat in Maryland in November, and the outcome of that race could determine control of the upper chamber. The high stakes of the Maryland Senate election have put intense scrutiny on the state’s primaries this Tuesday.
Maryland primary voters will cast ballots in the presidential race as well as congressional elections, and leaders of both parties will be closely watching the results of the Senate contests. The retirement of Senator Ben Cardin has created an opening for Republicans to potentially capture a seat in a reliably Democratic state, thanks to former governor Larry Hogan’s late entry into the race. A Hogan victory would mark the first time that a Republican has won a Maryland Senate election since 1980, and it could erase Democrats’ narrow majority in the chamber.
Ten Democrats will compete for the party’s Senate nomination, but two candidates have become the clear frontrunners: Congressman Dave Trone and the Prince George’s county executive Angela Alsobrooks. The race has historic implications, as Alsobrooks would become the first Black person elected to represent Maryland in the Senate and just the third Black woman to ever serve in the chamber.
Alsobrooks’s victory is far from guaranteed, as polls have shown her running neck and neck with Trone in the primary. Trone, the owner of the beverage chain Total Wine & More, has used his personal fortune to boost his Senate campaign. According to documents filed with the Federal Election Commission, Trone has already loaned $61.8m to his campaign.
Trone has pitched his ability to self-fund his campaign as a crucial asset for the general election, which has become unexpectedly competitive because of Hogan’s candidacy. Hogan, who is expected to easily win the Republican primary, presents a formidable threat to Democrats. When Hogan left office last year, a poll conducted for Gonzales Research & Media Services showed that 77% of Marylanders, including an astounding 81% of Democrats, approved of the governor’s job performance.
Hogan’s candidacy will force Democrats to allocate resources to a Senate race that they had previously assumed would be an easy win in the general election. In 2020, Biden beat Trump by 33 points in Maryland, but Hogan also won his 2018 re-election race by 12 points. Polls of potential general election match-ups have produced mixed results, but both parties will almost certainly have to spend heavily to compete in the state. The Cook Political Report currently rates the Maryland Senate race as “likely Democrat”.
Elsewhere in the state, the Democratic primary in Maryland’s third congressional district has turned increasingly contentious, after a Super Pac dropped millions of dollars into the race. Of the 22 Democratic contenders running to replace retiring congressman John Sarbanes, the former US Capitol police office Harry Dunn, who wrote a bestselling book about his experience protecting lawmakers during the January 6 insurrection, has the largest national profile. But polls show a close race between him and state senator Sarah Elfreth, who has won the backing of the pro-Israel Super Pac United Democracy Project.
Dunn, a first-time candidate, has proven himself to be a prodigious fundraiser, bringing in $4.6m across the election cycle. In comparison, Elfeth’s campaign has raised just $1.5m, but she has received outside help from UDP, which is affiliated with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (Aipac). UDP has spent at least $4.2m in support of Elfreth’s campaign, flooding the district with ads promoting her candidacy. Dunn has now turned UDP’s involvement in the race into a campaign issue, framing the “dark money spending” as corrosive to democratic principles.
The race to succeed Trone in representing Maryland’s sixth congressional district has also attracted a crowded field of candidates. In the Democratic primary, the former Biden administration official April McClain Delaney and state delegate Joe Vogel have emerged as the frontrunners, while former state delegates Dan Cox and Neil Parrott are viewed as most likely to win the Republican nomination. Of Maryland’s eight congressional districts, the sixth is viewed as the most competitive for the general election, and Cook rates the seat as “likely Democrat”.
Although Joe Biden and Donald Trump have both secured their parties’ nominations, Marylanders will still have a chance to weigh in on the presidential race on Tuesday. Biden’s name will appear on his party’s ballot alongside those of the Minnesota congressman Dean Phillips and self-help author Marianne Williamson, but Maryland Democrats also have the option to choose “uncommitted to any presidential candidate”.
Mirroring similar efforts in states like Michigan, pro-ceasefire advocates have urged Maryland voters to cast ballots for uncommitted to protest against Biden’s handling of the war in Gaza. The Listen to Maryland campaign hopes that at least 15% of Democratic ballots will be cast for uncommitted, and they have reached out to hundreds of thousands of voters leading up to Tuesday.
In the Republican presidential primary, only the names of Trump and the former UN ambassador Nikki Haley will appear on the ballot. Although Haley dropped out of the race in March, she has continued to win votes in the weeks since, which has been viewed as a potential warning sign for Trump heading into the general election. In the Indiana primary held last week, Haley secured nearly 22% of the Republican vote, and leaders of both parties will be watching for a similar result in Maryland.
Source: US Politics - theguardian.com
