The Senate race in which a Republican defeats the Democrats

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Thursday was the perfect weather for short-term voter canvassing. Larry Hogan said he could just do that.

The former two-term Maryland governor is in the home stretch of a Senate campaign that only began in February – a campaign he says was born out of frustration with inaction just a short drive away in Washington, particularly as a Senate race This year it failed (once again) to reach a compromise on border security and immigration reform.

He was outside the Odenton Library on Thursday, less than a week before the election, mobilizing a small group of volunteers to greet early voters. Speaking to a handful of fans and journalists at the scene, Hogan expressed confidence. He noted that in every race he has attended, “everyone always left us out and we always came out on top.”

As he spoke, an early voting line formed behind him out the door and around the corner of the library.

Tuesday could be the biggest challenge yet for this setting. Hogan faces Prince George's County Executive Angela Alsobrooks in a highly unique race for U.S. Senate that is marked in many ways by the ex-governor's rejection of former President Donald Trump and the “MAGA” brand. Months of campaigning on both sides focused on defining his image – Hogan's team portrayed him as a John McCain-style independent maverick, unafraid to buck the party and willing to reach across the aisle to work; The Democrats are telling him that he is ready to hand over the Senate gavel in the context of a possible second Trump presidency.

Current University of Maryland polls on the race Washington Post The governor trails his opponent by 12 points. The rhetoric from both candidates suggests the margin may be narrowing, although Alsobrooks still enters Election Day with a clear advantage. She was in Annapolis on Wednesday, speaking to her campaign volunteers in a nearly identical setting outside a recreation center where voters flocked to cast their ballots.

“I love the energy. I feel really good about the turnout. “We received a lot of very positive feedback at the polling stations,” the district executive told reporters outside the voting center on Wednesday.

Alsobrooks added that she “took nothing for granted” and called the race “competitive,” while explaining that she felt the issues resonated most strongly with suburbanites.

“I can tell you we all want the same thing,” Alsobrooks said. “I'm sure, I've been able to talk to families across the state, and most of them are concerned about economic opportunity… tax cuts for the middle class, want to lower the cost of goods. “The election is a big issue. I see cross-generational voters casting their ballots, from the youngest voters to the oldest voters, and fathers, uncles and grandfathers who care deeply about the election.”

Alsobrooks' allies have criticized the former governor over his reporting Time He claimed that Hogan's family benefited from government programs to convert properties into affordable housing complexes and separately alleged that he used his office's powers to enrich his real estate company. Hogan said the claims have been reported Time are wrong.

A Hogan campaign ally who was spoken to The Independent on Thursday noted Barack Obama's appearance at a phone bank in New Carrollton for Alsobrooks after President Joe Biden visited an ice cream shop in town – all in the last few days.

“They are running scared and completely desperate,” the GOP operative said.

Meanwhile, Alsobrooks faces her own crime gauntlet. Prince George's County is struggling with a crime wave, including armed carjackings. Republican groups are attacking her over that issue as well as a tax matter in which she was found to have improperly claimed some deductions – which she has since promised to repay.

On Wednesday, county officials concluded their meeting with primary voters by visiting First Baptist Church, a historic house of worship that has been open since the late 19th century, and delivering their speech. The crowd, a group of a few dozen mostly black Annapolis residents, indicated that most of them had already cast their votes but were still looking forward to attending.

Maryland's Senate race comes down to a turnout battle that has been playing out in the state's labyrinthine suburban neighborhoods in recent days. For Alsobrooks, that means voters in and around Annapolis, Baltimore and around the DC beltway go to the polls. Her opponent, meanwhile, is hoping that places like the red-and-purple suburb of Severna Park and other communities that separate these three cities will surpass him.

The state's hyper-political atmosphere is a remnant of Maryland's territorial abandonment to create the District of Columbia in 1790. It still hosts a sizable and seemingly ever-growing contingent of federal employees, a trend that continues with the relocation of the FBI headquarters to Greenbelt, down the street from NASA's Goddard Space Center.

This will create a special dynamic in 2024. While the state has a strong Democratic representation in its congressional delegation, it often flirts with Republicans in the governor's mansion, including two-term Hogan and Bob Ehrlich in the 2000s. Nowhere else in the country is there a Republican candidate who is competitive with the support of many Democrats in a blue state, especially given the GOP's MAGA leanings. And none of the other 2024 Republican Senate candidates have been vocal supporters of the effort to impeach Donald Trump after the 2021 insurrection.

But many residents — particularly Democrats who may have supported Hogan when he was governor — are squeamish about the idea of ​​a Republican majority in the Senate and are bombarded with ads claiming that the election of Hogan represents a vote for Trump's agenda the top is chamber.

An elderly Democratic voter named Janet leaving her polling place in Annapolis on Wednesday was told by Alsobrooks at the scene The Independent that she had “nightmares” about the idea that Rick Scott or another Republican senator could control the upper chamber’s agenda.

The former governor has sought to allay those concerns by aligning himself with McCain and other politicians known for casting tie-breaking votes on major legislation – a prospect he says is more valuable to Maryland than a party-line vote . As in the past, he emphasized in a brief interview on Thursday that he did not believe that the path to a Republican majority in the Senate led through his state. That fate, he argues, is sealed by racial dynamics in West Virginia, Montana and possibly even Ohio.

Vickie Calhoun, a Hogan campaign aide outside the polling station in Odenton, confirmed that the argument over the specter of a Republican Senate majority was the toughest (and most common) sell campaigners made to voters.

Calhoun, who is retired from the Army, added that she supports the governor in part because of her frustration with Maryland's Democratic establishment and the mismanagement of resources by local and state authorities.

The former governor asked by The Independent On Thursday, assessing the success of his efforts to persuade suburban Democrats to support him, he responded: “My opponent is running her entire campaign based on the idea that you have to vote Democrat because we are in control.” must have.”

Noting that he ran “seven different commercials” in which Marylanders – including Democrats – expressed this, Hogan went on to say he was confident he succeeded in convincing voters of the value of an independent vote.

“I think we’re convincing a lot of people,” he said. “I think we have more crossover votes than any other Senate candidate in America. I think I’m the only one ahead of the front and it’s a close race, but I think we’ll surprise a lot of people next Tuesday and cause another big surprise.”