Angela Alsobrooks aims to become first Black woman to represent Maryland in U.S. Senate
BALTIMORE - With early primary voting set to start on May 2, Prince George's County Executive Angela Alsobrooks is hoping to become to first Black woman to represent Maryland in the U.S. Senate.
"Raised in a working-class community, my mom was a receptionist and dad was a newspaper delivery person, but they convinced me that we all had an obligation to care for our neighbors," Alsobrooks said.
Tucked away in Largo, Maryland, the grassroots campaign team of Alsobrooks is hard at work fighting to make history in Maryland.
"In every opportunity I've had, whether it's elected state's attorney or county executive, I've always said, 'I want to leave it much better than I found it' and when I leave it, I want people to say, 'Oh my God, what an incredible amount of work that she did and that's what I'm interested in," Alsobrooks said. "This is a very serious time."
It's a serious time with so much at stake in this coming election, whether it be gun control, women's rights or crime, which Alsobrooks says is born from lack of hope and opportunity.
"When I think about what has to be done all across the state, it's economic opportunity," Alsobrooks said. "How do you really increase the bottom line for so many families? This is work that has to happen in this moment where a lot of people are discouraged."
Alsobrooks says what's been more discouraging is the assault on women's rights.
As a caregiver to her mother and her daughter, who is a first-year college student, codifying Roe versus Wade and restoring access to equitable healthcare for women, is worth the fight in her quest to become Maryland's next U.S. Senator.
"The least I can do is fight to make sure that women like my mother have the social security they need, have the healthcare they need and my daughter, who is 18 years old, and to your question, who is facing a world where she has fewer rights than me and her grandmother," Alsobrooks said. "There is something wrong with that."
As she gears up to take on her Democratic challenger David Trone in the upcoming primary, Alsobrooks has her eyes set on another opponent, former Maryland Republican Gov. Larry Hogan, whom she says she gets along with, but that their respective records are a different story.
"I'm about creating opportunity," Alsobrooks said. "We look at what the former governor did in Baltimore alone, sending back $900 million to the federal government that was designated to create a transportation network of the Red Line for Baltimore and then the $736 million that was also designated by the state was re-distributed elsewhere. I'm about creating opportunity and transportation is foundational to opportunity."
But it's the opportunity Alsobrooks has before her to be a force for change in Maryland which is an effort she says is inspired by the words of her matriarch – to use the talent she has and to make sure she's helping other people.
"People deserve to have someone fighting for them who understand them and who care about our families that's who I am and you know, if given the opportunity, I'm going to continue fighting for all of our families," Alsobrooks said.