Larry Hogan launches a broadside on crime as pivotal Maryland Senate race nears debate

Maryland’s close Senate race is growing increasingly tense as the race enters its final month and polls show the two candidates within single digits of each other.

The battle for retiring Senator Ben Cardin’s seat in the deep-blue state has been close for months, but both parties are showing more and more signs of valuing the race’s importance in the ending stretch. Democrats, backing Prince George’s County Executive Angela Alsobrooks for the seat, just added another $1.1m to her coffers, worried about their party’s flagging candidate in Montana. Republicans, meanwhile, are looking at Senate races in both Florida and Texas with apprehension.

Now, Republican candidate Larry Hogan’s campaign is out with a new ad hitting Alsobrooks on crime and policing reform. Data shows that property crime and violent crime dropped across the state between 2012 and 2022. In Alsobrooks’ backyard, however, rates of several types of crime including carjackings and shootings have been stubbornly high for several years; finally seeing some improvement just this year.

The ad is running in Baltimore and Washington DC television markets beginning Tuesday. Alsobrooks and Hogan are slated to debate in just two days on WBAL, the NBC News affiliate, in a discussion moderated by former Meet the Press host Chuck Todd.

Sitting behind the wheel as police cruiser lights illuminate the background, a Prince George’s County Police Department officer blames the county executive in the ad for “releas[ing] violent criminals and drug dealers” and opposing cash bail, while highlighting countywide crime statistics. Alsobrooks has served as Prince George’s chief executive since 2018; the county, like others in Maryland including Baltimore, has struggled to battle