Posted on 07/18/24
| News Source: WBAL
With less than four months until the election, new campaign finance reports show Angela Alsobrooks and Larry Hogan have each raised millions of dollars over the past three months.
These are the first fundraising numbers released since the primary in May — and in that respect, Alsobrooks and Hogan are neck-and-neck.
But UMBC associate professor of political science Ian Anson told 11 News Investigates there’s much more to the story leading up to November.
“This was an incredibly expensive primary, one of the most expensive primaries that we’ve ever seen,” Anson said.
The end result is Prince George’s County Executive Angela Alsobrooks as the Democratic candidate for Senate, and former Gov. Larry Hogan is the Republican nominee.
“This is something that I think is somewhat uncommon for a state like Maryland, right? Where we tend to not have such competitive races like this,” Anson said.
Anson said going forward, both candidates are in strong positions for the fall with Alsobrooks’ campaign having roughly $3.6 million cash on hand, and Hogan’s campaign war chest at $2.7 million.
But the gap right now, according to Anson, is with super PAC money.
“On the Republican side, there’s a PAC that’s attracted millions of dollars from out-of-state supporters of the Republican Party,” Anson said.
The super PAC supporting Hogan’s campaign, called the “Maryland’s Future PAC,” is sitting on nearly $15 million.
The vast majority of the funding is coming from out-of-state Republican figures. There’s currently no super PAC with anywhere near that amount of money supporting Alsobrooks, but Anson expects groups like the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee to step up for Alsobrooks in the months ahead.
“If you’re sick of seeing political advertisements in Maryland, get ready, because it’s going to be a deluge the likes of which we don’t normally see,” Anson said.
Anson said TV viewers can expect more negative ads in the months ahead since that’s the direction super PACs tend to go.