In her years as state’s attorney and county executive, Angela Alsobrooks talks about her record in Prince George’s County: lowering crime while serving as the top prosecutor, building schools and expanding mental health services.

Along the way, Alsobrooks has picked up opponents and critics of her work, many within her own Democratic Party that dominates Prince George’s politics. They’ve faulted her lack of engagement with Latino residents, for being tight with developers, and for a mixed record on crime.

But as Alsobrooks runs for the U.S. Senate, many of those critics have become supporters. The past disagreements, they say, pale in comparison to the potential calamities they fear if Republican Larry Hogan is elected to the Senate over Alsobrooks, a Democrat.

“It’s not a question at all,” said Del. Joseline Peña-Melnyk, a veteran and high-ranking lawmaker representing Prince George’s County in Annapolis. Peña-Melnyk had tangled with Alsobrooks over lack of Latino representation in the highest ranks of county government, and appeared in a campaign ad for Alsobrooks’ Democratic primary opponent, U.S. Rep. David Trone.

“I immediately, that night after the primary, was an Alsobrooks supporter,” Peña-Melnyk said.

Peña-Melnyk has been phone-banking and door-knocking in both English and Spanish in support of Alsobrooks. She’s done organizing in the immigrant community, given money to the campaign and urged others to do the same. She recently posted a photo to social media in a lime-green Alsobrooks campaign shirt, making calls to voters.

“We had our differences, but we worked them out,” Peña-Melnyk said.

Democratic dynamics

In Prince George’s County, politics is largely a one-party affair, with Democrats holding every single county and state elected office. Nearly three-quarters of the county’s registered voters are Democrats, with Republicans making up just 6.5%.

That means that disagreements over policy, politics and personality all come from within the Democratic Party — unlike most other suburban counties where there’s more of a mix between the two major parties.

Naturally, then, Alsobrooks has run up against members of her own party in her 16 years as a countywide elected leader in Prince George’s, eight as the top elected prosecutor and the last six as county executive.

The current set of County Council members have been described as more liberal than Alsobrooks, with a stated goal to do their work more independently than past councils and with less influence from the county executive.

The county is facing a projected multiyear budget shortfall, and Alsobrooks kept the budget in balance this year by freezing some county jobs and tapping reserves. The county’s police union remains frustrated, saying they’re understaffed.

Latino residents grew frustrated over a lack of resources provided by the county during the peak of the coronavirus pandemic. A Prince George’s business owner who took it upon herself to distribute groceries during the pandemic is now featured in a new Hogan ad, saying that “he was there for all of us” while governor.

And the school board devolved into infighting under the leadership of Alsobrooks-appointed Chair Juanita Miller, with the dysfunction so toxic that a faction of board members tried to have Miller removed. Even Alsobrooks — who had said she wanted to improve schools and de-politicize education when she first took office — ended up calling on Miller to resign. Miller’s term ended this summer.

Alsobrooks says she’s one who works to “build bridges” as a leader.

She said she appreciates that fellow Prince George’s Democrats are coming into the fold and helping her campaign.

“I’m just so grateful that we are aligned now and that we are moving forward together and looking forward to Election Day,” Alsobrooks said. “I’m looking forward to working with all of those leaders, because this is so much bigger than all of us. This is really about the future of our country.”

Alsobrooks said that in her years in politics, she’s learned that perspectives and alliances can shift over time.

“Because someone didn’t support you yesterday doesn’t mean they won’t support you tomorrow,” she said. “And one other thing that I learned along the way is sometimes how you see something just depends on where you sit.”

‘This is where we are now’

Del. Deni Taveras is another Prince George’s Democrat who supported Trone but then switched to Alsobrooks after her primary win. She served on the Prince George’s council for eight years, overlapping with Alsobrooks’ second term as state’s attorney and first term as county executive.

Taveras also had frustrations with Alsobrooks’ policies and outreach to Latino and immigrant residents in Prince George’s. But she said it was an obvious choice to support Alsobrooks over Hogan.

Taveras said it’s time to leave the primary campaign and previous disagreements in the past.

“I’d rather us move forward. This is where we are now,” she said. “We’ve had a peaceful sit-down. We’re looking forward to working with Alsobrooks to see how we can improve things.”

For Taveras, it’s important for Alsobrooks to understand that the community she represents — Latinos and “new Americans” — “are interested in more than just immigration reform. We’ve moved beyond that. We have a lot of interests, just like any other American.”

Peña-Melnyk said that Alsobrooks recently sat down for an hour and a half with about 15 Latino and immigrant leaders. “She listened and was very respectful and responsive,” Peña-Melnyk said.

That’s a stark comparison to Hogan, who Peña-Melnyk served alongside for all eight years of his tenure as governor. Peña-Melnyk, who chairs a health committee in the General Assembly, recalls Hogan as a governor who showed little interest in lawmaking aside from vetoing bills that raised the minimum wage and those that expanded gun background checks and access to abortion care.

“He didn’t come one time to testify on a bill in my committee — not one time in eight years,” Peña-Melnyk said.

One Hogan veto still stings: Peña-Melnyk sponsored a bill to create a system for hospitals to more easily check for open beds for mental health and behavioral health care, inspired from a time when she worked to help a teenage boy in crisis who needed treatment. As with most of the other vetoes, the Democratic-led legislature overturned the veto and the measure became law.

Like many Democrats, Peña-Melnyk says she doesn’t trust Hogan’s promise to protect access to abortion care nationally or his pledge to be independent.

“I’ve seen how he really is. He is not bipartisan,” Peña-Melnyk said.

‘A stark contrast’

The prospect of Hogan as a U.S. senator — potentially giving Republicans control of the chamber — also motivated the liberal advocacy group Progressive Maryland to back Alsobrooks.

When Alsobrooks first successfully ran for county executive in 2018, progressive groups threw their support behind Donna F. Edwards, a former congresswoman who they believed was independent from developers and other interests who hold sway in the county.

During that campaign, Progressive Maryland pressed Alsobrooks to stop taking campaign donations from developers and their lobbyists, an ongoing issue in Prince George’s.

Now, though, Progressive Maryland is unleashing its band of members and half a million dollars of its cash to get out the vote to help Alsobrooks. Progressive Maryland volunteers have knocked on nearly 100,000 doors, as well as made phone calls to voters and coordinated their activities with other pro-Alsobrooks groups, said Larry Stafford Jr., the group’s executive director.

Why the shift from campaigning against Alsobrooks six years ago to supporting her today?

“Because we understand the stakes of this election cycle and what Hogan in the Senate would mean,” Stafford said.

Though Hogan portrays himself as a moderate man in the middle, “he will side with the Republican party probably 90% of the time,” Stafford said. “We would much prefer to have someone like Angela Alsobrooks in the Senate.”

Progressive Maryland leaders have met with Alsobrooks’ campaign team to discuss past issues, and they’re confident she’ll support important Democratic and progressive policies, Stafford said.

“We’ve had our disagreements, of course, like we’ve had with many Democratic elected officials,” he said. But there was no question that Alsobrooks is the better choice: “It’s just a stark contrast between them on the issues that matter to us as an organization.”

Police remain critics

Alsobrooks has not, however, mended fences with all of her critics in Prince George’s County. The county’s Fraternal Order of Police joined most other police unions in endorsing Hogan for the U.S. Senate.

The FOP’s frustrations with Alsobrooks include her diversion of $20 million meant for a public safety training center to a behavioral health center at a local hospital.

Alsobrooks has championed the move — made in 2020 following nationwide protests against police brutality and discrimination — as a key accomplishment. But the police union remains frustrated about it.

The union also says the police force is understaffed, with hundreds of open positions, and that the Alsobrooks administration has bungled the implementation of a property tax credit for public safety workers.

Angelo Consoli, president of the Prince George’s County Fraternal Order of Police, said he’s only been able to meet with the county executive once, and that she doesn’t seek out the input of union leaders or officers. The union wasn’t represented on a police reform task force in 2020.

“I have zero relationship with her,” Consoli said. “She chooses not to engage with us, and I’ve never heard of that” with other county executives.

Hogan referenced that relationship — or lack of relationship — in a social media video he shot recently at the FOP lodge, standing beside members and saying, “I know you haven’t gotten any attention from the county executive.”

Consoli wonders if Alsobrooks has focused too much on her future.

“I think she’s been running for some kind of other office since she became county executive,” he said.