With his hands folded on a bright yellow tablecloth and surrounded by Marylanders voicing some of their worst fears, Larry Hogan said he wanted to listen.

He also had plenty to say, and by the time he stood up 35 minutes later at St. Andrews Ukrainian Orthodox Cathedral in Silver Spring, he left some of them thinking twice about how they’ll vote in next week’s election for U.S. Senate.

“It’s a tough calculus,” said Catherine Bilzor Cretu, 75, of Owings in Calvert County. “If push comes to shove, do you want more Democratic votes [in the Senate], or do you want somebody who would be trying to influence people more strongly on the other side of the aisle to bring in some of those votes? I need a crystal ball. I’m tempted.”

Voters like Cretu — Democrats picking Kamala Harris and weighing whether to split their ticket with the Republican former governor or choose Democrat Angela Alsobrooks — will determine the outcome of Maryland’s highest-profile race this year.

That’s no secret to the candidates. They’ve spent the feverish final weeks of their campaigns racing up and down the I-95 corridor, talking to as many voters as possible in the state’s largest and most Democratic counties.

Alsobrooks, rallying her small army of allies in a state where her party outnumbers Republicans by 1.2 million registered voters, is making her case that Hogan will be a reliable vote for a Senate GOP majority.

Hogan, one church visit and Jewish deli meal at a time, is pushing back.

“We’re in Montgomery County because we’re trying to convince those Democrats who voted for me twice to do it again,” Hogan told a couple at Attman’s Delicatessen in Potomac last week after ordering matzah ball soup at the recommendation of another diner, a registered Democrat voting for him.

Just before the start of early in-person voting, Hogan said he was confident but still had a math problem. He said in an interview he needed “a few more Democrats who actually have a favorable opinion of me… but they’re hesitant because they’re not so sure about all the other Republicans.”

Cretu, a retired printing company owner, is one of those hesitant voters. She liked what Hogan had to say about supporting Ukraine after he toured the church and participated in a roundtable conversation. But she also doesn’t have complete trust in him — particularly on abortion issues — because she feels like he took credit for policies that he opposed but were passed by the Democratic-controlled General Assembly when he was governor.

Marika Ayyagari, a graphic designer from Potomac, was in a similar position. She told Hogan that members of his party have expressed “hateful rhetoric” about abandoning Ukraine, and she’s extremely worried if the U.S. doesn’t let its allies fire back more aggressively at Russia.

Hogan sighed as he said he’s not sure one person can change all of those issues, though he vowed to speak out and work with everyone in the Senate. Ayyagari, whose grandfather emigrated from Ukraine and still has family there, said later that she was torn.

“Hogan is strong as far as support for Ukraine and foreign policy. I think he would support our allies,” said Ayyagari, 57, a Democrat voting for Harris. “The fact that Alsobrooks has not met with us is sort of a strike against her, in my opinion. She should take this more seriously.”

Others, of course, are less uncertain. And despite polls showing a decline in support among Democratic and independent voters for Hogan compared to his time as governor, his backers still run the gamut.

Marc Attman, the third-generation owner of the deli that has locations in Baltimore and Potomac, said he’s known Hogan for years and is a Democrat voting for him again because of his “open mind.” Lucky Singh, the owner of Lenny’s Deli in Owings Mills who handed Hogan a multicolor bouquet of roses when he walked in last week, said he’s backing the former governor because of his support for small businesses.

Neil Mizansky, a 60-year-old unaffiliated voter who thinks Trump is “embarrassing” said he likes that Hogan is “willing to cross over” and oppose the former president. Steven Rosenweig, 70, of Pikesville, said he’s a Republican for Trump but gives Hogan credit for standing up to him.

Still, Hogan is counting on diehard Trump supporters to turn out for him. In an unusual dynamic, that means both sides are, in some ways, relying on voters who view Hogan’s anti-Trump stances as disingenuous.

“He’s got to sort of pretend that he’s not going to go along with everything that Trump does, to get elected,” said Ron Balotin, 83, a retiree from Reisterstown. “I’m going to vote for him. I have no choice. I’m not going to vote for the Democrat. Let’s see what happens when he gets elected, how he changes. He’d be a senator and we’ll see if he comes on with the Trump agenda.”

Alsobrooks is relying on a different set of voters to buy that argument. She and her allies have spent the closing weeks of the race the same way they started it — saying Hogan, despite his pledges to be a bipartisan “maverick” in the mold of the late U.S. Sen. John McCain, would be an automatic vote for the Republican agenda. Hogan has responded that Republicans are almost certain to win control of the Senate anyway, so he would be a welcome voice of “common sense” in the majority party.

“The Hogan team is trying to make this confusing and we are trying to make sure that it is not at all confusing,” said U.S. Sen. Brian Schatz, a Democrat from Hawaii who’s stumped with Alsobrooks multiple times in recent weeks. “The question at hand is who do you want to run the judiciary committee? Who do you want to confirm Supreme Court justices? Who do you want to make tax policy?”

While Hogan is connecting with voters down the stretch largely around the idea that he’ll take a bipartisan approach, Alsobrooks’s messaging is routinely about both Hogan and her policy record or goals.

On the campaign trail, she delivers a fast-paced stump speech heavily centered on what she considers her top achievements as Prince George’s County executive: building new schools, increasing investment in small and minority-owned businesses, building new mental health facilities and a cancer center, and attracting state and federal investments, such as around the train station in New Carrollton and the FBI headquarters project in Greenbelt.

But there can be subtle differences depending on the crowd.

Standing in front of 75 cheering women in Baltimore the day after her debate with Hogan, she slammed the Republican on being untrustworthy, an idea she’s hoping voters will buy particularly because of his changed tune on abortion rights.

At a barbershop in Prince George’s County last week, she talked to a dozen or so Black men mainly about economic mobility, saying it was the “number one issue everywhere … for men and women of all backgrounds and colors” while rejecting the idea that Black men have different priorities as a “myth.”

Lowering the cost of prescription drugs and protecting the Affordable Care Act took center stage the next day in Baltimore with about 35 retired public employees. She spoke at length about her grandparents and parents, of her father becoming her mother’s primary caregiver and the “shock” a few months ago when her father had to pay $800 for heart medication.

With the older crowd of mostly retired Black women, she also struck an overly positive, sometimes spiritual tone, saying variations of the word “joy” six times and making multiple references to religion in a 15-minute speech.

That message wasn’t lost on about 20 people who lingered for a soda, a slice of pizza and a phone banking session to call less-engaged voters.

“She says she’s spiritual, and I am also, and she’s young, and we need some young ideas in government now,” Sylvia Williams, a retired social worker who lives in White Marsh, said between calls. “I just believe she’ll do an excellent job.”

Williams, 75, said she believes Alsobrooks understands the struggles seniors are going through and will work to prevent the reduction of Social Security benefits.

Ronnie Bailey, 74, a retired corrections officer who lives in Northwest Baltimore, said he liked Alsobrooks’ focus on prescription drug prices and opposing Republicans’ attempts to dismantle the Affordable Care Act.

Everett Brown, whose barber invited him to the Alsobrooks appearance at the Grooming Lounge in Kettering community of Prince George’s County, said he went to meet the candidate and get some information about how to start a nonprofit for his initiative advocating for men with cancer.

Squeezed into a room with two barber seats and the quiet hum of razors coming from down the hall, Alsobrooks said it was an important issue, and she’d have someone from her office connect with him. Brown said in an interview later that her support for the new cancer center at the University of Maryland Medical System site in Largo was “really big” for him since he lost his son and brother to cancer and started his advocacy work.

“She’s been doing pretty well as far as the community, as far as the Black communities,” said Brown, 49, of Capitol Heights. “I feel like she’s been a champion for us.”

But for Alsobrooks and Hogan, connecting directly with voters is just a part of how they and their allies are trying to swing the last few votes before Tuesday. Nearly every one of a couple dozen voters interviewed by The Sun in the last week referred, unprompted, to the flood of negative ads that have underscored the high stakes of the race.

The televisions ads — funded by groups that are not permitted to coordinate with the campaigns — have called Alsobrooks a “slumlord” and Hogan a politician who “only serves himself.”

“That bugs the hell out of me,” Steven Rosenweig, a Republican and retired security officer from Pikesville, said of ads that try to influence voters around the idea that Hogan will flip the control of the Senate to Republicans.

Bailey, the retired Baltimore Democrat, said it’s been frustrating to combat what he considers the “slinging mud” part of the election season.

He said the first voter he called last week raised the issue that Alsobrooks benefitted from homeowners tax credits she was not allowed to receive. When the man said he “doesn’t support people who don’t pay their taxes,” Bailey said he told him he didn’t have all the facts and that the election was about choices — in this case, one that Bailey believes could have a lifetime of implications because of judicial appointments and Trump’s attempts to interfere with elections.

“People believe the last thing they hear, the loudest thing they hear,” Bailey said.

Have a news tip? Contact Sam Janesch at sjanesch@baltsun.com, 443-790-1734 and on X as @samjanesch.