Dozens of Angela Alsobrooks supporters, many clad in her campaign’s signature green, stood behind an array of Democratic bigwigs at City Dock in Annapolis as the candidate for Senate said all the right things about climate change.

“Our children have clearly identified in every conversation I’ve had — from college students, our high school students and on — have listed climate change as an existential threat to their generation, and they’re watching,” the Prince George’s County executive said.

“And so that’s what this moment is about.”

It was a nice tableau, a rare moment of focus on climate and the Chesapeake Bay as the contest between Alsobrooks and her Republican opponent, former Gov. Larry Hogan, heads to a close on Election Day.

It would be hard for either candidate to claim the two most significant environmental challenges facing Maryland — the impact of a changing climate and the never-ending effort to clean up the Chesapeake Bay — have gotten the attention they deserve in this campaign.

Alsobrooks stakes out some generic positions on her website, three paragraphs for the bay and three for climate. Hogan has a brief description of his work on bay cleanup as governor, but omits any reference to climate.

That makes sense. In the hierarchy of needs for most voters, the environment ranks behind things like inflation, housing, reproductive rights, gun violence and crime.

Unless you live somewhere like Annapolis, where the city is spending $100 million to make its historic heart more resilient to record flooding. Where bay cleanup efforts are centered.

“We wait and see what is happening. Which way is the wind spinning? Is it going to be a full moon? What is going to be pushed up the Chesapeake Bay and into the state capital here in Annapolis?” Mayor Gavin Buckley said as he led Alsobrooks on a tour of the project.

“This is a kind of ground zero here.”

Hogan’s been to City Dock, too. He lived up the street during his eight years as governor. His administration approved $10 million toward the city’s resilience project, now estimated at $100 million and behind schedule.

There’s a nice photo of him and dozens of his supporters after the July Fourth parade, standing where Alsobrooks and Buckley toured the flood-prone area in mid-October. It sits atop his campaign Facebook page.

Four days after Alsobrooks was in Annapolis, Hogan chose the tiny Eastern Shore community of Tilghman Island for a brief mention of climate.

“After meeting with watermen and hearing about everything they’re faced with, from the repercussions of climate change to overbearing federal regulations, I know there is so much more I can do,” he said in a statement issued by his campaign.

Hogan was great on the environment — at least, for a Republican governor — even if his self-described “common-sense” approach led to contradictions.

He opposed a statewide fracking ban but signed it into law when it passed with a veto-proof majority.

The governor supported the Paris Climate Accords after President Donald Trump pulled the United States out of the treaty, and put in place clean air standards stronger than the agreement’s. Yet, a few years later, he let a measure that went further — creating the nation’s toughest greenhouse gas emissions reduction plan — pass without his signature.

Hogan signed Maryland’s agreement to create a wind-power farm off the Atlantic Coast, but sympathized with Ocean City leaders who have since sued to block the plan.

He ordered the state to sue Pennsylvania over failure to reach Chesapeake cleanup goals, but let Maryland’s ability to enforce its own environmental laws atrophy.

Despite the contradictions, Hogan’s accomplishments gave him a platform to claim the role of being a leader on climate.

“This is an important conversation that is needed, I believe, now more than ever,” he said at the 2019 Climate Leadership Conference in Baltimore.

He just hardly talks about it today

Alsobrooks said the right things during her tour of City Dock.

She talked about her county’s investment in electric buses and the expansion of its composting program. She put $1.3 billion into stormwater management programs and removed over 410 tons of litter from the Anacostia River.

Yet, Alsobrooks never mentioned the Chesapeake Bay by name. Nothing she said gave the impression the issue is central to her campaign. She doesn’t have to.

Democrats with far greater experience on the environment — U.S. Sen. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, U.S. Sen. Brian Schatz of Hawaii, and state Sen. Sarah Elfreth, likely to be the first member of Congress from Annapolis in 60 years — were there to carry her across the gulf of expertise.

“We know that if Larry Hogan gets elected, he will be the vote that gives the Republicans in the Senate the majority” Van Hollen said. “That means Republicans who largely do not believe in climate change and who want to roll back big parts of the Inflation Reduction Act that is the largest investment in combating climate change ever.”

It’s a calculated pitch: Vote for the party with a record on these issues, even if Alsobrooks seems somewhat adrift. Climate deniers lead the Republicans, even if Hogan’s record is OK. Putting his party in charge of environmental priorities would reverse progress made under President Joe Biden.

“We have to talk to every single person we can find, our neighbors and friends and family members, many of whom are confused about whether or not, in fact, we should be voting because we think Larry Hogan’s a nice man,” Alsobrooks said. “And we want them to understand that is not at all what we are deciding.”

One of the stops on Alsobrooks’ tour of City Dock was a local art gallery that regularly moves its paintings of boats and harbors to higher ground when flooding is forecast. Annapolis is on track to top 120 floods this year.

I wandered back after the crowds left, and the Alsobrooks’ big green campaign bus started navigating out of downtown’s narrow streets. I asked the lone gallery employee if she planned to vote for Alsobrooks.

“No, the other guy,” she said.

So there’s one vote the climate theatrics at City Dock didn’t win. But it might not matter.

The Senate race won’t be decided on the issue of climate or the Chesapeake. Even those who vote based on climate and the bay won’t choose because of what Hogan or Alsobrooks say.

They will vote on the balance of power in Washington.