Maryland Senate hopeful Larry Hogan is conducting outreach to Hispanic and Latino voters during the election homestretch, eyeing a key bloc of voters his team hopes could help sway the unusually competitive race for a deep blue state.
The Republican’s team believes Prince County Executive Angela Alsobrooks has potential vulnerabilities with Hispanic and Latino voters and is deploying ads aimed at peeling them away from her.
“Angela wants the Latino vote but she didn’t put a single Latino on her board of directors. Our community is not her priority,” one ad from the Hogan campaign said on Spanish radio, per a translation.
On Monday, the Hogan campaign rolled out a new ad in English featuring a testimonial from Centro de Habla Hispana CEO Dendry Aguilar who runs a business in Prince George’s County.
The English ad showcases Aguilar heaping praise on Hogan, hailing him as someone who “can move mountains.” While that spot refrained from knocking Alsobrooks, Aguilar had a blunt assessment of her governance.
“We’ve been pretty hurt during her administration,” Aguilar told The Post, knocking Alsobrooks for redirecting funds away from a new police facility and blasting her pandemic policies.
Aguilar also ripped the lack of representation in Alsobrook’s cabinet. “There’s no one that has been appointed to any of her executive-level positions.”
“There’s not one Hispanic.”
Alsobrooks has faced controversy in the past over the lack of Latinos and Hispanics in her cabinet. That’s despite her commitment to “make sure that our Latino communities have a seat at the table and that their voices are always represented.”
Still, Alsobrooks does enjoy support from some groups such as CASA In Action.
Hispanic and Latino voters account for about 12.6% of Maryland’s population, according to the latest Census data and they could be critical to Hogan’s seemingly uphill battle to pull off an upset for Senate this cycle.
Back in 2018 during his reelection bid for governor, Hogan managed to notch 48% support from Latino voters vs 51% for Democrat Ben Jealous — a strong showing for a Republican in a blue wave year, per a survey of the contest.
Maryland’s Senate race has attracted the attention of top party brass on both sides due to Hogan’s history of winning statewide for governor in 2014 and 2018. Still, he is very much the underdog in the Senate race.
The Cook Political Report ranks the race as “Likely Democrat” and the latest RealClearPolitics aggregate gives Alsobrooks a 9.5-point edge over Hogan. At one point last month, however, that lead was hovering around four points.
Significantly, that’s in a state that President Biden won by some 33 percentage points in 2020. The Old Line State hasn’t had a Republican serve in the upper chamber since 1987. Maryland also only has one Republican in its eight-member congressional delegation — Rep. Andy Harris (R-Md.)
Hogan had sought to appeal to moderates, by adopting a pro-choice stance on abortion and announcing that he would not vote for former President Donald Trump, a man with whom he clashed repeatedly during his administration.
Given the 51 Democratic to 49 Republican split in the Senate, one race could tip the balance of power in the upper chamber. Republicans are already favored to flip outgoing Sen. Joe Manchin’s (I-WV) seat.
The GOP is also very optimistic about turning Sen. Jon Tester’s (D-Mont.) seat and eyeing races in Michigan, Ohio Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Nevada.
Republicans have a favorable map, only having to defend 11 seats compared to the 23 seats that are aligned with Democrats (including three seats held by Independent senators that caucus with Democrats).
