Senate

and has since won two terms as county executive.

She emphasized abortion rights during the campaign, criticizing Hogan’s 2022 veto of legislation allowing nurse practitioners, midwives and other non-physician medical professionals to perform abortions in Maryland. Hogan said he favored restoring the precedent set by the landmark 1973 U.S. Supreme Court case Roe v. Wade as the law of the land.

During the candidates’ only debate last month, Hogan referenced Alsobrooks’ recent admission that she inadvertently claimed property tax credits she did not qualify for on a home she was renting out in Washington, D.C., that had belonged to her grandmother.

Alsobrooks’ campaign pitched her election as critical to Democrats’ efforts to try to maintain a Senate majority.

Jeffrey Johnson-Bey, 50, who voted at Gunpowder Elementary School with his 21-year-old son, considered the race’s national implications.

Though pleased with the job Hogan did as governor, Johnson-Bey said he voted for Alsobrooks to help give Harris — his presidential choice — “a Democratic-led Senate to deal with instead of giving Trump a Republican-led Senate.”

Alsobrooks is the third Black woman elected to the U.S. Senate, following Carol Moseley Braun of Illinois and Kamala Harris of California, the current vice president and Democratic presidential nominee. Harris is a mentor and friend of Alsobrooks. In neighboring Delaware, Democrat Lisa Blunt Rochester defeated Republican Eric Hansen on Tuesday to become that state’s first Black female senator.

Laphonza Butler of California was appointed to fill a Senate vacancy in 2023 but did not seek election.