| | | | |  | | By Brakkton Booker and Ally Mutnick | With help from Ella Creamer, Natalie Fertig, Monica Akhtar, Jesse Naranjo and Ben Weyl
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Signs for the Democratic candidates in Maryland's Senate content are seen outside an early voting center May 9 in Rockville, Maryland. | POLITICO illustration/Photo by AP | What up, Recast fam! Michael Cohen, former President Donald Trump’s fixer-turned-key witness in the hush money criminal trial, takes the stand for a second day. Jury selection resumes in the corruption trial of embattled New Jersey Sen. Bob Menendez. Plus, Mississippi’s Republican Gov. Tate Reeves signs a bill banning transgender people from using bathrooms and locker rooms that align with their gender identities in public buildings. First, though, we focus on the battle for Maryland. It’s primary day in Maryland, which had once been the site of a relatively sleepy Democratic Senate primary, but in the closing weeks turned nasty as polls tightened and the stakes for the party ratcheted up. Angela Alsobrooks, the top official in the wealthy, majority-Black Prince George’s County, had been trailing for most of the primary, according to virtually every public poll, but has appeared to surge in the closing weeks of the bruising campaign. Her chief opponent is David Trone, the three-term U.S. congressman from Maryland’s 6th Congressional District. He represents one of the whitest districts in the state and has blanketed the airwaves for about a year, self-funding his campaign off the strength of his vast personal fortune he amassed as co-founder of alcohol empire Total Wine & More. The matchup to replace the retiring Sen. Ben Cardin will test whether Trone’s money can overpower the Maryland Democratic machine, which is backing Alsobrooks.
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In a typical election cycle, it might not matter much who wins the primary; the Democratic nominee would cruise to victory in the general election, bolstered by the party’s 2-to-1 voter registration advantage in the state. But this year the winner will likely face off against former GOP Gov. Larry Hogan, arguably the state’s most popular figure.
Let’s break down five reasons to watch Maryland’s primary contests. Spoiler alert: It’s not all about the marquee Senate race. 1) Who’s David and who’s Goliath? Each campaign is seeking to paint the other as the heavyweight in the race. And arguably, they’re both right. Trone has single-handedly made this contest the most expensive Senate race in state history by dumping some $55 million of his personal fortune into the primary, much of it on TV ads that began blanketing the state more than a year before the primary election in an attempt to drown out Alsobrooks’ message. But she’s got a claim to the title, too. She’s got the endorsements of all but one member of the Maryland congressional delegation, and the backing of Democratic star-on-the-rise Gov. Wes Moore, who will be campaigning alongside her today. She’s also snagged the endorsement of the legendary retired Sen. Barbara Mikulski and has been endorsed by the editorial board of The Washington Post.
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| 2) Race has permeated the campaign. Race and gender were always going to be important in the contest between a white man and a Black woman. And the closing stretch of the primary has veered even harder into that territory. Alsobrooks staked much of her campaign on history: Not only has Maryland only ever elected white senators, but its current federal delegation is entirely male. There have only ever been three Black women in the United States Senate, and many Democrats saw this as an easy path to add another. Maryland has no shortage of Black elected officials, and about one-third of its population is Black. But previous attempts by Black candidates to win Senate seats ended in primary defeats. What’s different this time is that the party establishment has coalesced behind Alsobrooks. Trone, who relies heavily on Black surrogates to deliver his message, has also repeatedly stumbled on race. In March he had to apologize for deploying a dated slur used to demean Black people, saying he misspoke. He was forced to scrub a “training wheels” comment from an ad calling into question Alsobrooks’ experience. Then when trying to make a point about receiving endorsements from top officials from Prince George’s County, he said this about those who didn’t back him: “The people in Prince George’s County who stuck with her are the low-level folks.”
|  Trone takes a selfie with Janna Parker, a resident of Temple Hills, during a Jan. 23 event in Baltimore. | Francis Chung/POLITICO | 3) The battle for Baltimore. Both Alsobrooks and Trone left little doubt their campaigns are laser-focused on turning out voters in Charm City. Each started with little to no name ID and spent significant time there trying to make inroads with voters. Baltimore, though, has far more at stake than determining the outcome of the Senate contest — there’s a mayoral race too. Incumbent Mayor Brandon Scott is seeking a second term, and his prospects for reelection appeared grim a few months ago. Polls had him trailing Sheila Dixon, a former mayor attempting a third comeback after being convicted of embezzling donated gift cards while in office more than a decade ago. Then an April survey from Goucher College and The Baltimore Banner showed him surging to an 8 percentage point advantage over Dixon. While the leading candidates have sparred over reducing violent crime and economic growth, the March 26 collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge shifted a national and international spotlight on the city — and its mayor. Scott seized gargantuan amounts of earned media and exhibited some political savvy by spinning a derisive remark about him on social media accusing him of being a “DEI mayor” into a positive, saying he is the “Duly Elected Incumbent.” 4) There’s a nail-biter of a House contest, too. Maryland’s 3rd Congressional District would easily qualify for the state's marquee contest if not for the nastiness of the Senate race. The contest features a whopping 31 total candidates vying to replace retiring Rep. John Sarbanes. In this safe Democratic seat there are three Democrats with a legitimate shot at winning the primary. Harry Dunn has received the most national recognition. He is a first-time candidate who became something of a household name for trying to fend off the mob who attacked the U.S. Capitol during the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection. The former officer was awarded the Presidential Citizens Medal at the White House last year. He has raised more than $4.5 million, most of it coming from outside the state.
|  Democratic House candidate and former Capitol Police officer Harry Dunn campaigns Saturday in Millersville. | Brian Witte/AP | Sarah Elfreth, a Maryland state senator, has gotten endorsements from Cardin and financial support from Trone. Among her biggest contributors are United Democracy Project, a pro-Israel group, which has donated more than $4 million to her campaign, according to Open Secrets. Another state senator, Clarence Lam, a practicing physician, has centered health care as a main pillar of his campaign. He’s raised some $735,000, according to his latest campaign filing. 5) The Hogan factor. Larry Hogan has not had much to do during the primary other than, well, be himself, Larry Hogan. He left office in early 2023 amid sky-high approval ratings, in part due to his fervent anti-Trump stance. And despite his opposition to Donald Trump, he is skating through the GOP primary. Hogan also eschewed overtures from the centrist No Labels presidential project in favor of running for Senate in Maryland. It was a recruiting coup for national Republicans who were eager to put Democrats on defense. |  Larry Hogan and his wife Yumi walk to cast their ballots Tuesday in Davidsonville, Maryland. | Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images | Abortion may be Hogan's biggest hurdle to winning the Senate seat. The issue is on the ballot in the fall, with Marylanders voting on whether to enshrine abortion rights into the state Constitution. Hogan is on record saying he would not support a national abortion ban, but the strict anti-abortion stance among many in his party will be a challenge for him to overcome. Should he advance to the general election, it would also be the first time Hogan appears on the same ballot as Trump. Biden walloped Trump in Maryland by 33 percentage points four years ago, and Trump’s lingering unpopularity in the state will likely be a huge drag on Hogan come November.
| | | TRUMP GETS BACKING FROM NFL GREATS
|  Former NFL player Lawrence Taylor arrives for a rally with Donald Trump on Saturday in Wildwood, New Jersey. | Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images | Trump over the weekend trotted out a pair of surprise endorsements during a massive rally in Wildwood, New Jersey. New York Giants football greats Lawrence Taylor and Ottis Anderson appeared with Trump on stage and proclaimed their support for the presumptive GOP presidential nominee. "I just wanted to say I grew up a Democrat and I’ve always been a Democrat until I met this man right here," said Taylor, an NFL Hall of Famer, gesturing toward the former commander in chief. "He will not have to worry — nobody in my family ever voting for a Democrat again." Anderson, Taylor’s Giants teammate, chimed in to rev up the crowd about Trump: “Don’t you just love that guy?" Trump’s campaign has promised an outreach blitz to voters of color, including touting that he has a number of Black luminaries that support him. The appearance also comes as a New York Times-Siena College poll showed Trump at 20 percent among Black voters in five key swing states and essentially tied with Biden when it comes to Hispanic voters, both of which would be huge improvements for the GOP.
| | | | NATIVE VOTERS COULD DECIDE CONTROL OF THE SENATE
|  Democratic Sen. Jon Tester talks with constituents before a parade at Crow Fair in Crow Agency, Montana, Aug. 19, 2018. | Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call via Getty Images | This November, Native American voters in Montana could make it or break it for Sen. Jon Tester — and by extension the Democratic Party’s control of the Senate. POLITICO’s Natalie Fertig sent us this dispatch from the town of Browning, just south of the Canadian border. Native Americans vote overwhelmingly Democratic, and make up 5 percent of the population in a state that Tester won by just 3.5 percentage points in 2018. But in 2022, far fewer Natives showed up to the polls — and in 2024, the Tester campaign is putting more than $1 million into an initiative to make sure that doesn’t happen again. Every Montana county saw a decline in turnout between 2018 and 2022, but the only counties where turnout went down more than 20 points were majority-Native counties Glacier and Blaine. Glacier County’s decline was nearly 8 points greater than majority-white Valley County, the county with the third-largest decline. The hurdles to getting Native voters to the polls include restrictive voting laws, a dearth of fixed addresses, poor access to the internet, marathon driving distances in remote rural areas and general apathy, advocates say. The logistics are tough: Imagine canvassing without cellphone access or launching a digital ad campaign where many people don’t have internet. As in all situations, money is key — and has often been lacking. “Where there's been enough money … we've been nearly able to close that Native to white voting gap,” says Bret Healy, a consultant with Four Directions Native Vote, a multistate nonprofit working on Native voter turnout. “It takes extraordinary resources because you're overcoming all the effects of the last 150 years of economics, of historic and consistent disenfranchisement,” Healy added. “You've got to put a lot of fuel to overcome those historic and generational obstacles — you’re not going to do it just because, oh gosh, there’s an exciting election at play.”
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|  Sen. Bob Menendez (second from right) and his wife, Nadine Menendez (far left) listen with members of their defense team during their arraignment in Manhattan federal court on March 11, 2024, in New York. | Elizabeth Williams/AP | Menendez Corruption Trial — New Jersey Sen. Bob Menendez has found himself entangled with the law before, but his 2017 case ended in a mistrial. POLITICO’s Matt Friedman and Ry Rivard break down why some say this time around prosecutors have a compelling narrative for making the corruption charges stick. Rubio for Veep? — Sen. Marco Rubio is said to be on Trump’s list for possible vice presidential candidates, an interesting development given they were bitter rivals in 2016. POLITICO’s Kimberly Leonard, Gary Fineout and Mia McCarthy explain why the Republican senator’s selection would upend Florida politics. Nikki Haley NOT on the VP List — Over the weekend, Trump, perhaps unsurprisingly, revealed former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley is not on his shortlist for vice president. And as POLITICO’s Adam Wren, Elena Schneider and Natalie Allison report, Trump has not demonstrated he’s wooing Haley voters, even though they remain a force in GOP primaries.
| | | THE RECAST RECOMMENDS For your viewing pleasure — Chinese American photog Corky Lee uses his camera as a “weapon against injustice.” A PBS documentary about him debuted on PBS on Monday. Here’s a snippet. She gotta shoe — WNBA Superstar A'ja Wilson, who is among the most decorated athletes in the sport, had not inked a deal for a signature shoe…until now. Hari Kunzru’s latest novel, “Blue Ruin,” follows Jay, once a rising star in the London art world who now lives undocumented in the U.S., delivering groceries during Covid. His past rushes toward him when he makes a delivery to the house of a girlfriend from a former life. “Black Twitter: A People's History” dives deep into the hashtags, memes and voices of Black Twitter, charting its cultural and political impact. Catch the docuseries on Hulu.
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| Constance Wu and Daniel Yoon star in “East Bay” (originally titled “Low Budget Ethnic Movie”), a comedy about the pressure to be successful and happy, centering on several people in their 30s and 40s living in the San Francisco Bay Area who believe they’re failing professionally, romantically and financially. It’s in cinemas now. BTS’ RM passes through different phases of life via a seemingly infinite maze of corridors in the nostalgic visual for “Come back to me.” Childish Gambino surprise-drops “Atavista,” a reworked version of his 2020 album “3.15.20,” and a black-and-white music video for “Little Foot Big Foot” — in which he performs a Beyoncé-esque routine to a frosty audience before things take a morbid turn — featuring “Abbott Elementary” creator Quinta Brunson.
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