Alsobrooks and Hogan attempt to present the election narrative in a terse televised debate

Former Gov. Larry Hogan (R) and Prince George’s County Executive Angela Alsobrooks (D) stuck steadfastly to their messages Thursday during what was likely the only televised debate of Maryland’s Senate races – often accusing each other of misrepresenting their records have .

The debate, recorded this afternoon at Maryland Public Television studios, was scheduled to air Thursday evening on several regional television stations and other media outlets.

The hour-long television broadcast provided the perfect setting for the state of the race and the candidates’ desire to define it. Hogan insisted that he could be the same independent actor and seeker of political commonality on Capitol Hill as he was as governor, a stance that gave him record-high approval ratings in a heavily Democratic state for most of his eight years in office.

“We’re going to hear a lot about Democrats vs. Republicans, red vs. blue. “All I really care about is red, white and blue,” he said. “Sending more partisans to Washington won’t help.”

Hogan said he is running to succeed retiring Sen. Ben Cardin (D) because he wants to end partisan division in Washington, D.C., adding: “I’m trying to put people over politics and country over party. “

But Alsobrooks frequently asserted that in a closely divided Senate where most Republicans are loyal to former President Donald Trump, party labels should matter to Maryland voters, regardless of what they think about Hogan and his time as governor.

Alsobrooks regularly named Trump, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), and other Republican senators such as Lindsey Graham (S.C.), Ted Cruz (Texas) and Rick Scott (Fla.). She said if Hogan had been so anxious to distance himself from the GOP, he should have run for the Senate as an independent.

Libertarian complains about exclusion from Senate television debate

“He liked wearing it [Republican] jersey,” she said. “When Mitch McConnell called him [to run for Senate]He was happy to come into the game.”

Alsobrooks also accused Hogan of nominating candidates in the last two White House elections and said he planned to do so again this year.

On issues ranging from foreign policy to the federal workforce to the future of the U.S. Supreme Court, Alsobrooks sought to define Hogan in terms of the national Republican agenda and the consequences of handing the Senate to Republicans. But nowhere did she try to illustrate the differences between herself and Hogan — and his fellow Republicans — more forcefully than on the issue of abortion.

For most of his political career, Hogan described himself as a personal pro-lifer. But shortly after entering the Senate race this year, he began identifying as a “pro-choice” candidate and vowed to support legislation to restore abortion rights under Roe v. Wade applied before the Supreme Court overturned that ruling with its Dobbs decision in 2022.

Alsobrooks suggested at the start of the debate that Hogan’s personal commitments were irrelevant.

“If Republicans have the majority in the Senate, there will be no vote on Roe,” she said. “He will empower a faction” determined to impose further abortion restrictions.

Hogan responded that he would try to influence Republican colleagues on the abortion issue and others.

“Sometimes just one voice standing up can really make a difference,” he said.

Alsobrooks also slammed Hogan because he vetoed a bill in 2022 to increase the number of medical professionals who can perform abortions — Democrats in the Legislature overrode the veto — and because he delayed state funding for a training program after the bill came into force.

“There’s no way to fix this,” she told reporters after the debate. “He withheld funding for abortion care legislation. This is an undisputed fact.”

Hogan said he vetoed the measure because it would allow “unlicensed professionals” such as midwives to perform the procedure.

“A lot of people in the medical community agreed with me,” he said.

Hogan said that when Alsobrooks attacked his abortion story, he “said several things that are not true.”

“It’s an insult when you lie about something as important as this issue,” he said.

According to a recent poll, 69% of Maryland voters support a ballot question to enshrine abortion rights in the state constitution. Alsobrooks and her supporters believe reproductive rights are a winning issue for them, and they have raised the issue repeatedly throughout the campaign. But Hogan tried to deflect the attacks Thursday, arguing that Alsobrook’s attempts to link him to anti-abortion Republicans amounted to a kind of blind partisanship that voters despise.

“We’ll be hearing a lot about this conversation throughout the evening because that’s how they talk in Washington,” he said.

Alsobrooks described the Supreme Court as “horrible” and said she would support attempts to reform the court through term limits, expanding the number of justices and ethics reforms.

“They no longer support the will of the people,” she said.

Alsobrooks also collected quotes in which Hogan praised the Supreme Court justices, which she said came after the Dobbs decision. But Hogan said he was specifically referring to a Supreme Court decision on funding for Jewish schools.

Hogan lamented that Supreme Court nominations rarely receive more bipartisan support and compared that reality at the federal level to his own success in appointing judges in the state – including six of the seven current justices of the state Supreme Court (then known as the Maryland Court of). objections), which were confirmed unanimously. Hogan has said that if elected to the Senate, he will only support White House candidates who are able to win bipartisan support.

“If there’s one thing we shouldn’t politicize, it’s the Supreme Court,” he said.

Asked by NBC’s Chuck Todd, who served as debate moderator, whether he would have supported Trump’s three Supreme Court nominees, Hogan replied: “I wasn’t there and I don’t know how I would vote.”

Foreign policy

Foreign policy played a small but important role in the candidate debate. One of the panelists, WBAL-TV host Deborah Weiner, noted that Cardin is a strong supporter of Israel, while U.S. Senator Chris Van Hollen (D) criticized Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and called for an immediate halt to Gaza fire and return of all hostages held by Hamas. She asked Alsobrooks if she would be more like Cardin or Van Hollen if she were elected.

“I am neither, I am Angela Alsobrooks,” she said, adding: “We have a duty to bring these hostages home and work on negotiations that lead to a ceasefire.”

Hogan called himself a strong supporter of Israel and criticized Alsobrooks for accepting the support of Van Hollen, whom he described as “probably the most anti-Israel member of the U.S. Senate.”

Alsobrooks hit back: “Sen. Cardin, who supports me, says he is ashamed of the way Governor Hogan is politicizing this issue.”

Asked whether they would support sending U.S. troops to Taiwan as that country deters Chinese aggression, Alsobrooks said no. Hogan replied: “Hopefully it doesn’t come to that.” Hogan said he decided to run for the Senate after Republicans in Congress “failed” a deal that would provide additional aid to Taiwan and Ukraine as well as tougher security measures US border would have provided.

Alsobrooks again tried to link Hogan to the national GOP on foreign affairs.

“The problem the governor will have is that his party doesn’t believe in these alliances” that the U.S. has traditionally made with other foreign governments.

The personal problems

During the debate, Alsobrooks was asked by WRC-TV reporter Tracee Wilkins about reports that she improperly claimed tax credits for two properties she owned, one in Prince George’s County, the other in Washington. Alsobrooks said the mistake was unintentional and she has made efforts to make amends.

“I always pay my taxes — always,” she said.

After the debate, she told reporters that she had already repaid the principal amount she owed for improperly claiming the tax breaks and was working on repaying the interest.

Asked why the Alsobrooks revelation should matter to voters, Hogan acknowledged: “I’m not sure it should matter to voters.”

GET TOMORROW’S HEADLINES.

SUBSCRIBE

While his campaign has made only occasional references to the Alsobrooks tax flap since CNN’s initial reporting, a super PAC called Maryland’s Future, which supports Hogan, has already spent millions of dollars attacking Alsobrooks on the issue with television and radio ads.

Neither candidate was interviewed Thursday about a new report in Time magazine that said the Maryland Board of Public Works, which Hogan chaired as governor, repeatedly awarded lucrative federal housing contracts to clients of Hogan’s real estate companies. According to the report, nearly 40% of all competitive affordable housing contracts awarded during Hogan’s term went to companies represented by his firm, which his brother took over when Hogan became governor.

Democrats seized on the report and suggested that Hogan had at least violated state ethics laws by failing to disclose the conflict of interest or recusing himself from those Board of Public Works votes.

“All of this raises a lot of questions, questions that Gov. Hogan needs to answer,” former Attorney General Brian Frosh (D) said in a call Thursday organized by the Maryland Democratic Party.

Speaking to reporters after the debate, Hogan dismissed the Time article as “completely false.”

“I just saw it going into the debate,” he said. “That’s what you call an October surprise.”