ROCKVILLE, Maryland — Caroline, a black woman in her early 60s, has lived in Maryland her whole adult life. She calls herself an independent and says Republican Larry Hogan was a good governor. She knows nothing about the record of Democrat Angela Alsobrooks, the county executive in neighboring Prince George’s County. Yet Caroline voted for Alsobrooks over Hogan in the Senate race on Tuesday.
Why?
“It would be nice to have Democrats have the majority” in the Senate, she tells me.
In the past six years, Alsobrooks has presided over a deadly youth crime wave and a simultaneous drop in academic achievement, all following her yearlong school closures, draconian COVID-19 lockdowns, and defund-the-police fumbling. Nevertheless, Alsobrooks overcame a massive poll deficit early in the race and handily defeated Hogan on Election Day.
The reason: Maryland voters decided that partisan control of the Senate was more important than competence or accomplishments. This reflects our national shift toward increased partisanship, where most blue states vote Democratic from top of ticket to bottom, and red states vote straight party, as well — occasionally making an exception for a governor.
“I don’t think she’s done much for us,” Sandy, a retired black woman, tells me at the College Park Diner in Prince George’s County. “I do like former Gov. Hogan. … He’s not bad, but I’m voting for the party. … It’s a party thing.”
“She hasn’t done anything that caught my attention or came to my radar,” Gaisha, who lives in Prince George’s County, says of Alsobrooks. She adds, “I did not have a problem with Hogan. Nope. And as a matter of fact … for those eight years, up until now, I voted for him.”
Spicer is a self-described “broke-ass hillbilly” drinking at a dive bar in Howard County at midday Monday. He says Hogan “was a great governor — he did a great job.” Spicer knows nothing about Alsobrooks, but he voted for her. “I don’t want the Senate floor to be loaded with Republicans to where every vote they take, it’s going to pass.”
This is exactly the message the Democrats have been pushing. The main radio ad in circulation on election eve led with former President Barack Obama saying, “Control of the Senate could come down to Maryland.” There was no gushing about Alsobrooks’s management of Prince George’s County. There was no critique of Hogan’s management of Maryland. It was just counting points on the board, counting to 51 senators.
This worked, it appears. Polls show that most Maryland voters see things the same way as Spicer and Caroline.
The University of Maryland released a poll in late October showing Alsobrooks leading Hogan 52%-40%. In that same poll, though, Hogan outpolled Alsobrooks on the economy by 9 points, crime by 5 points, and taxes by 6 points.
It’s not hard to see why: Alsobrooks’s tenure has allowed crime to skyrocket in the county.
Prince George’s County voters didn’t seem to blame Alsobrooks too much for the crime problem, though.
“Crime? You will never be able to control crime because it’s happening everywhere every day,” says Kevin, a middle-aged black man in Suitland, one of the highest-crime parts of the county. Larry, in his 60s, likewise says, “Ain’t nobody can do nothing about crime.”
While crime rates did rise nationwide after the lockdowns and the riots following the police killing of George Floyd, they soon fell back down in most places — but not in Prince George’s County.
In 2018, the year Alsobrooks was first elected, homicides in Prince George’s County had been falling by three straight years, down to 61. The number of homicides climbed every year up to 136 in 2021. In 2023, homicides ticked up again from the 2022 level, and the average number of homicides in the Alsobrooks era is more than 100 a year.
Carjacking became a youth sport following Alsobrooks’s lockdowns and police defunding. They are still on the way up: There were 125 juvenile carjackings last year in Prince George’s County, compared to 89 in 2021.
“I think the voting blindly for a party is ridiculous,” says Jen, in Rockville. She’s a Hogan voter and is upset her neighbors can’t see past party labels. “Grown adults are like, ‘Vote Democrat, that’s it.’ They don’t even care about the issues.”
This is a fair critique of blind partisanship, but from one perspective, Maryland voters’ behavior makes sense. They elected Hogan twice to a job where competence matters much more than party. But does competence really matter in the Senate anymore?
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It should matter, obviously, but for about 20 years, individual senators have become little more than foot soldiers in the army of their respective floor leaders. There are no floor amendments. Debates are simple grandstanding. The idea of a “Great Senator” almost doesn’t make sense anymore.
So maybe the blind partisanship of Maryland’s Democratic voters is a cynical realism: They don’t think they’re electing a lawmaker to represent them. They’re simply voting for which party they want to run the Senate.