MD Senate Election – Things to Know

With the Presidential election happening soon, we also can’t forget about our state Senate election ballot either. On November 5th, 2024, you can cast your vote for who you think is best fit to represent your voice, and here’s how.

This year’s running Democratic candidate is Angela Alsobrooks. Alsobrooks has strived through numerous different positions, gaining knowledge throughout her different fields. She served as a county executive for Prince George’s County, became the first full time domestic violence prosecutor, and was a former states attorney for Prince George’s County. She graduated from Duke University with a bachelor’s degree in public policy, and the University of Maryland School of Law with a Juris Doctor degree. Alsobrooks has received endorsements from prominent Maryland democrats, such as Gov. Wes Moore, Sen. Chris Van Hollen, and Rep. Steny Hoyer. The Alsobrooks campaign promises reform in  various subjects and topics such as immigration, public safety and criminal justice, standing up for workers, and economic policies and goals. Alsobrooks has many goals and ideas to better represent Marylanders in the eyes of the Senate. Some of these include strengthening supply chains, reform in the criminal justice system, increasing minimum wage, and ensuring and implementing standards to keep families safe. With this she is pro-abortion rights, wants to support initiatives for The American Dream and Promise Act, supporter of the Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act, and support implementing universal paid and medical leave policies.

As for the Republican candidate this year, former Governor Larry Hogan has decided to step up and run to represent Marylanders. Larry Hogan served as a two term governor for Maryland, as well as being a small business owner, Secretary of Appointments of Maryland, and a former chair of the bipartisan National Governors Association. In his role as governor he cut taxes for 8 years, gained a $5.1 billion structural budget deficit, and restored peace in Baltimore during the 2015 riots. Hogan graduated from Florida State University with a degree in government and political science. He has a number of goals he desires to achieve in his role as a senator. He wants to fix broken politics in Washington, provide apprenticeships and jobs for veterans that are still finishing their service, grow federal support for apprenticeships, and fight to ensure that agencies and their leadership are held accountable. There are many bigger picture promises in his campaign. Veterans are a big part of his campaign as well. He wants to provide an increase in health care benefits, caregiver benefits, and additional screening for the Department of Veteran Affairs (VA) employees. While doing this he also wants to improve memorization and burial benefits for veterans. In addition to this, hold the VA accountable for abuse of finances and ensure that the funds for its department are being used for its intended purpose, to serve veterans.

On October 10th, 2024, the senatorial debate between Angela Alsobrooks and Larry Hogan was broadcasted and here are a few things you should know about in order to stay in touch with what’s happening in the election so far. One of the most widely concerned topics covered in this debate was abortion laws and how each candidate felt about the topic. Alsobrooks claims that the former governor vetoed an important abortion legislation which then led him to refuse the funding to train abortion care providers. In response, Hogan claimed to support women’s abortion rights and sponsor codifying Roe V. Wade. He clears up his reasoning for his veto of the legislation, stating that the bill was “rolling back and making it less safe for women to get access to abortion, it was allowing non-medical professionals..” Another topic discussed in this debate was inflation. 

According to a poll released by UMBC, 89% of Marylanders are concerned about inflation. This is a three way question being, who gets the blame for the wave of inflation that we have, who gets the credit for bringing down the rate of inflation, and how do we prevent this from ever happening again. Larry Hogan begins by stating that Republicans and Democrats added to the increase in inflation rates because they ran the national debt up. He then brings up the fact that for 8 years during his role as Maryland’s governor, he lowered tax costs by 4.7 billion dollars and worked to eliminate retirement taxes. In his response he also claims that his opponent Angela Alsobrooks, wants to raise social security taxes which Hogan says will only continue to make things less affordable for people. In regards to this Angela Alsobrooks states that she understands the inflation crisis and how much things have gone up since the pandemic in 2020. She wants to hold big corporations accountable to ensure that they are paying their fair share of taxes, cut taxes for the middle class, and only raise taxes for people who earn more than $400,000 yearly. She goes on to say that social security is like a timeline, which is losing it’s funds and will most likely run out of money in 2035. Because of this, raising taxes for those who gain above $400,000 is a future goal of hers as senator.

Mr. Jeter, an AP Government teacher here at Blake believes “both candidates are very qualified. They both have a lot of electoral experience.” He added that they both have executive experience rather than legislative experience, concluding with “it’s a tough one, they’re both very good.”

Electing a worthy candidate to represent Maryland is hard and lots of questions can go through your mind when it comes time to make your vote. Most people ask themselves how this candidate will affect their future; Mr. Jeter points out that “the economy that will be here after students leave Blake, the people who get elected now are going to really shape what that economy looks like.”

Mr. Jeter added that he would like to see either of the candidates go to the national government in order to improve education. It is a known fact that the government supplied money to schools during the COVID-19 pandemic, but now there are, “good programs that we can’t do anymore because of the money we had before the pandemic.”

The outcome of the election will heavily influence education and make it “harder to get into colleges and universities,” especially because it’s already expensive to get there without scholarships.” Or in another instance “it could be very difficult for people to go right into the workforce, and if they’re not going to get paid as much as the economy is not working.” Overall Mr. Jeter concludes that “the economy can be a really big factor that impacts students,” and that “whoever you elect in the Senate is going to help make some of those national policies that may impact a student here at Blake High School.”

You too can cast your vote in our upcoming 2024 Maryland Senate election. There are a few requirements that a person must follow in order to be able to have their vote counted towards the election. A few of these regulations are, must be a U.S. citizen, 18 years of age by the time of general elections, a Maryland resident, and not have been convicted of selling or buying votes. Voting can be simple! During early voting (voting date) or election day you will be handed a ballot where you can mark the ovals that are next to your choice of candidates. From there you review your answers and put them under the privacy screen and take it into the scanner. An election ballot worker will direct you to put your ballot in a screening cast. The ballot will then be scanned and be put into a secure ballot box where your vote will be officially counted for. If you choose to cast your vote through mail then you would fill out the election ballot and return it to your local election office.

The senate race between Angela Alsobrooks and Larry Hogan is coming up quickly. Polls currently show that Alsobrooks is in the lead with 49.5% of votes while Hogan has 40% of votes. Who will you cast your vote for? What are your opinions on the candidates’ campaign promises? Stay tuned into this year’s Maryland senate election to find out more about our candidates and what will happen in the upcoming weeks.