How Are Larry Hogan and Angela Alsobrooks So Freaking Close In Maryland Senate Race?
Maryland, get it together.
Bit of a shocker in Maryland! A poll of 1,258 likely Maryland voters who answer calls from random phone numbers found that former Republican Maryland Governor Larry Hogan and Democratic Prince George’s County Executive Angela Alsobrooks are in a dead heat for Maryland’s US Senate seat. Puzzlingly, of the same people, 64 percent say they would vote for Kamala Harris, compared with 32 percent for Donald Trump.
Who are these confused people? Do they think that bag of old coleslaw Hogan wouldn’t sign on to every single stupid Trump or Republican thing? He has literally said he plans to caucus with the Republicans. “Of course I am, I’m a lifelong Republican!”
Watch him say it with your own eyeballs!
Maryland is like the inverse of Arizona, where Trump and Harris are tied, yet Ruben Gallego is 15 points ahead of Kari Lake. It’s like people who hate Sprite but think 7-Up is delicious. Or love the Affordable Care Act, but think Obamacare is a communist plot.
And now John Bolton’s PAC (yes, John Bolton has a PAC!) has become Hogan’s largest donor, committing more than $1 million to air pro-Hogan, anti-Angela-Alsobrooks ads, claiming she’s “soft” and “inexperienced.” Not like Larry Slogan! He is hard, rock hard! Watch him walk around in a tactical vest, rrr grr!
Watch one of the ads, if you want. At least it’s short.
Even the narrator there sounds not quite sure. “For the Senate we’ve got Larry Hogan … I guess?”
Hogan wants Marylanders to believe that “no party tells him what to think.” “He’s not right, he’s not left, he’s just Larry!” He’s not like a regular Republican, he’s a cool Republican. He went to a pride parade! Where he got booed, because people read the newspapers and remember full well how he refused to sign any of the LGBTQ legislation that crossed his desk.
And Hogan supports abortion rights now, sure Jan! Jesus came down just in time for campaign season and touched his heart, and was all like “fuck them embryos, you gotta say what it takes to win, Larry!” So now after 68 years as a die-hard Roman Catholic anti-abortion guy, he now identifies as pro-choice, you betcha! Just like Mark Robinson miraculously changed his mind down in North Carolina. Jesus has been so busy touching Republican hearts when it comes to women’s health issues these days, Trump needs a defibrillator.
And Hogan praised Trump’s choices for Supreme Court justices. In November of 2022, just four months after the Supremes overturned Roe v. Wade, Hogan gushed in a speech, “Now, we should give President Trump all the credit he deserves for his accomplishments in office [...]. [He] nominated incredible justices to the Supreme Court.” Oh, yeah, they’re incredible, all right! There’s your next ad, Alsobrooks!
Mitch McConnell recruited him, and Donald Trump, JD Vance and Tom Cotton have endorsed him. Conservative sugardaddy Harlan Crow has even contributed to Hogan’s PAC. But sure, he’s not like your usual Republican, he is practically Wavy Gravy.
Hogan is like one of those parents who constantly declares “I’m a great dad! I love all of my children!” and then drinks a beer and says “y’all work it out!” while one of his kids beats the shit out of the other one.
He likes to brag that as governor, “we fought ‘sanctuary cities,’” where law enforcement is discouraged from reporting immigration status to the Feds. Sanctuary cities in Maryland: Baltimore City, Baltimore County, Takoma Park, Charles County, Howard County, Hyattsville, Montgomery County, Prince George’s County, Queen Anne’s County, Rockville, and St. Mary's County. In other words, he fought the will of the vast majority of his entire state. And he’d love to do it again, if only you’d let him!
We could spend several more paragraphs cataloging the suckage of Hogan’s governorship, but will try to compress it:
He held on to $68 million in his budget that was supposed to go to schools, and $75 million that was supposed to shore up unfunded pension liabilities.
He blocked environmental regulations for meat processing plants and forfeited $900 million in federal transportation funds to build a light rail line that would serve Black neighborhoods. Just told the Feds to keep their money!
He vetoed an increase in the minimum wage, and background checks on the sale and transfer of shotguns and rifles.
He oversaw a staffing shortage at the medical examiner’s office that led to corpses piling up and the state having to pay outside contractors $850 an autopsy, and that was before COVID, when he got rolled on some faulty test kits.
Hogan fought transparency, using an encrypted app to communicate with his staff, and hired shady people like Roy McGrath.
We could go on and on! Marylanders, send these fun facts to your family members who think Hogan’s a nice guy because he adopted a shelter dog and lowered the Bay Bridge toll.
And let us also dwell on the many positives of his opponent Angela Alsobrooks!
Unlike a certain entitled nepo baby, she is self-made. She voted to increase the minimum wage, supports red flag laws and universal background checks for guns, immigration reform, LGBTQ rights, overturning Dobbs, all the progressive goodies that Marylanders say they want. She even started a composting program! After she became executive in PG County, crime went down 58 percent, according to the Baltimore Banner. Here’s her charming speech at the DNC.
Wouldn’t you rather have her in the Senate for six years, instead of Hogan, that lying sack of mashed potatoes, strutting around in a flak jacket? How is this race is even close?
Maybe it’s not; one small poll can be deceiving. No polls showed Alsobrooks beating spendy billionaire David Trone in the Democratic primary, and then she handily flattened him by double digits, with a fraction of his budget.
Still, it underscores how Dems have to not take anything for granted this year, not even in bright-blue Crab-land.
[AARP / WSJ / Baltimore Banner]
The one thing I'll always remember about Hogan is that in 2020, when it came to deciding between voting for trump or voting for a Democrat, he voted for a dead guy. He actually voted for Ronald Reagan because he couldn't force himself to vote for Biden. I haven't heard them mention that during the campaign.
Marylander here. Yeah, this is going to be close. Hogan is really popular in this state. He fulfills the fantasy of a Reasonable Republican for a lot of people, even though he actually *is* that only very intermittently.