Angela Alsobrooks
Angela Deneece Alsobrooks is an American lawyer and politician serving since 2025 as the junior United States senator from Maryland. A member of the Democratic Party, she served from 2011 to 2018 as state's attorney for Prince George's County and from 2018 to 2024 as county executive of Prince George's County. She was Prince George's County's first female county executive and the first Black female county executive in Maryland history.
Born and raised in Prince George's County, Alsobrooks graduated from Duke University and the University of Maryland School of Law. She began her career as an attorney for local firms before becoming involved in county government as a domestic violence prosecutor and appointed official in county executive Jack B. Johnson's administration. She was elected state's attorney of Prince George's County in 2010 and 2014 and Prince George's County Executive in 2018 and 2022.
Alsobrooks was elected to the U.S. Senate in 2024, defeating former Republican governor Larry Hogan in the general election. She is Maryland's first African-American senator and the third African-American woman elected to the U.S. Senate. She is the second woman to represent Maryland in the Senate, after Barbara Mikulski.
Early life and career
Early life and education
Angela Deneece Alsobrooks was born in Suitland, Maryland, on February 23, 1971, to James Alsobrooks, who worked as a distributor for The Washington Post and a car salesman, and Patricia Alsobrooks, a receptionist. Her family moved from Seneca, South Carolina to Maryland in July 1956 shortly after her great-grandfather, J. C. James, was shot and killed by police officer Charles Lee while resisting arrest. Lee was not charged in James's death after a coroner's jury found that he had acted in self-defense after the two began to scuffle as Lee attempted to arrest James for creating a disturbance. Alsobrooks has said that her surname is of West African or Native American origin.Alsobrooks was raised in Camp Springs, Maryland, and attended Benjamin Banneker High School in Washington, D.C. She earned her Bachelor of Arts degree in public policy and Afro-American studies at Duke University in 1993, and her Juris Doctor degree from the University of Maryland School of Law of the University of Maryland, Baltimore in 1996. After she was admitted to the Maryland Bar in 1996, Alsobrooks clerked for law firms DLA Piper and DeCaro, Doran, and for Circuit Court Judges William D. Quarles Jr. and Donna Hill Staton until 1997, when she began working as an assistant state's attorney in Prince George's County. She was assigned to handle domestic violence cases as an assistant state's attorney. She left the state's attorney office in 2002 to become education liaison for Prince George's County Executive Jack B. Johnson. In 2003, she was appointed executive director of the county revenue authority.
Early career
Alsobrooks first got involved in politics while serving as the president of her high school's student government. She later worked as an intern for U.S. House Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton. Alsobrooks attended the 1992 Democratic National Convention as an intern to the Congressional Black Caucus and volunteered for Democratic nominee Bill Clinton's presidential campaign. In 2000, she worked on the presidential campaign of Vice President Al Gore. In 2008, Alsobrooks ran for delegate to the Democratic National Convention, pledged to U.S. Senator Hillary Clinton. After the convention she supported Democratic nominee Barack Obama. At the 2016 Democratic National Convention, she was a delegate pledged to Clinton.In 2009, Alsobrooks became involved with electoral politics when she filed to run for Prince George's state's attorney after reading a profile of District Attorney of San Francisco Kamala Harris in Essence Magazine, and her book Smart on Crime. Harris supported Alsobrooks's campaign for state's attorney.
Prince George's State's Attorney
Alsobrooks was first elected Prince George's state's attorney in 2010, and reelected in 2014. She is the first woman and youngest person to serve as state's attorney in county history. In the 2010 election Alsobrooks ran with the support of Maryland Secretary of Aging Gloria G. Lawlah, county executives Wayne K. Curry and Jack B. Johnson, and incumbent state's attorney Glenn Ivey, while running on a slate with former state delegate Rushern Baker.As state's attorney, Alsobrooks took what was seen as a tough-on-crime approach while also supporting a rehabilitative approach for juveniles in the criminal justice system. During her time in office, the violent crime rate in the county declined by 50%, in line with national trends. Alsobrooks also increased prosecutions for car break-ins, vandalism, and burglaries, and personally prosecuted Richmond Phillips, who was sentenced to life without parole for killing his mistress and their daughter; and Daron Boswell-Johnson, who was sentenced to two life sentences after killing his two-year-old daughter and her mother. She supported initiatives by county executive Rushern Baker to concentrate government resources in communities struggling with social problems and to take control of the Prince George's County school system, which she accredited to a decrease in crime in the county. A Special Prosecutions Unit was created within her office to handle economic crimes, public corruption, and police misconduct cases.
Alsobrooks sought and secured funding to increase the number of attorneys in the office and increased conviction rates. She also divided her office's prosecutors into the county's six police districts to handle cases specific to each region, and concentrated on addressing quality-of-life concerns, discouraging truancy, and increasing social services. Alsobrooks worked with Harris, now California Attorney General, to implement a program to reduce recidivism in Prince George's County, mirroring the "Back on Track" program Harris introduced in California.
Prince George's County Executive
Elections
2018
Alsobrooks announced her intention to run for county executive on July 28, 2017. Her platform included increasing education funding, expanding the commercial tax base, and improving public safety by increasing police hires. During the primary, Alsobrooks was endorsed by The Washington Post, U.S. senator Chris Van Hollen, U.S. representatives Anthony Brown and Steny Hoyer, and numerous labor unions. Alsobrooks won the Democratic primary election with 61.8% of the vote, defeating eight other candidates, including former U.S. Representative Donna Edwards and state senator C. Anthony Muse. She faced Republican Jerry Mathis in the general election, who later dropped out and endorsed Alsobrooks on August 29, 2018, allowing her to run without any formal opposition and earning 98.9% of the vote in the general election.2022
Alsobrooks was seen as a possible candidate for the 2022 Maryland gubernatorial election, but she instead chose to run for re-election as county executive in 2022. She endorsed Wes Moore in the Democratic primary on March 5, 2022, which was later described as "the most vital endorsement" for Moore's campaign. Following Moore's victory in the general election, Alsobrooks was named as a co-chair on the transition teams of both Moore and Comptroller-elect Brooke Lierman.Tenure
Alsobrooks was sworn in on December 3, 2018, becoming the first woman to be elected county executive for Prince George's County as well as the first Black woman to serve as county executive in Maryland.In July 2019, Alsobrooks traveled to Detroit, Michigan, to lend moral support to Harris during one of the televised presidential debates, bringing her teenage daughter along. In May 2020, Alsobrooks was named co-chair of the Maryland Women for Biden group, alongside House Speaker Adrienne A. Jones, Senate President pro tempore Melony G. Griffith, and Maryland Democratic Party Chair Yvette Lewis. She was a delegate pledged to Biden at the 2020 Democratic National Convention and later attended the inauguration of Joe Biden on January 20, 2021. Alsobrooks was the keynote speaker during the 2024 Democratic National Convention, during which she also served as a delegate to the 2024 Democratic National Convention pledged to Harris.
During her tenure as county executive, Alsobrooks faced criticism from Latino officials for not appointing a single person of Hispanic descent to her 39-member cabinet, despite Latinos making up 21.2% of the county's population. In statements to The Washington Post, she acknowledged that more could be done to include Latinos in her government, and members of her office said that the administration often does not receive Latino applicants for appointable positions. Following this criticism, Alsobrooks appointed Manuel Castillo as chief information security officer, created the Office of Multicultural Affairs, and made Spanish translations of county documents more accessible. She later claimed that Latino representation in the county's workforce had increased from 6% to 23% during her tenure.
After her election to the U.S. Senate, Alsobrooks resigned as county executive on December 2, 2024. The county's chief administrative officer, Tara Jackson, became the acting county executive upon her resignation. A special election for county executive was on June 3, 2025. Alsobrooks endorsed at-large county councilmember Calvin Hawkins, who was defeated in the Democratic primary by Prince George's County State's Attorney Aisha Braveboy. Braveboy won the general election, defeating Republican nominee Johnathan White with 91.2% of the vote.
COVID-19 pandemic
On March 9, 2020, Alsobrooks announced that Prince George's County had recorded its first case of COVID-19. She soon ordered the closing of all county buildings and opened the first COVID-19 testing site in the county at FedExField on March 27, 2020. Prince George's was the Maryland county hardest hit by the COVID-19 pandemic, with 74,704 total cases and 1,317 deaths in the county by March 2021.In April 2020, Alsobrooks praised Larry Hogan's administration for its acquisition of 500,000 test kits from South Korea through Operation Enduring Friendship, later requesting 90,000 of these test kits for Prince George's County residents. In May 2020, as hospitalizations began to plateau statewide, Alsobrooks expressed concern with the state's potential plans to begin easing some COVID-19-related restrictions, citing health department reports showing that the county was still dealing with a surge in COVID-19 patients. Later that month, Alsobrooks provided $8 million for a county rent assistance program to assist individuals affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. She also joined almost every other county executive in sending a letter to Hogan warning that their jurisdictions "lack sufficient resources" to take steps to reopen in the weeks ahead. Alsobrooks announced on May 28, 2020, that the county would begin its "incremental opening", and would form a "Prince George's Forward" task force to help the county recover from the pandemic going forward. The county entered its second phase of reopening on June 15, 2020.
In July 2020, following an increase in cases in the county, Alsobrooks created the COVID-19 Ambassador Compliance Team to make sure establishments followed the county's COVID-19-related restrictions. As cases continued to increase, she initially declined to implement any new restrictions before setting a 50-person limit on social gatherings the following day. In September 2020, Alsobrooks declined to move into phase three of reopening, pointing out that 13 ZIP codes in the county had a positivity rate of five percent or higher. In November 2020, Alsobrooks announced new capacity limits at bars, gyms, and restaurants in Prince George's County amid a spike in COVID-19 cases.
In January 2021, Alsobrooks announced that the county health department would cancel any vaccination appointments scheduled after February 9 as part of a "reset" after noticing that people from neighboring counties were crossing into Prince George's to get the COVID-19 vaccine. In February 2021, she launched a "Proud to be Protected" campaign with local hospitals and non-profits to tackle vaccine misinformation and encourage residents to get vaccinated, and later joined statewide efforts to do the same. In May 2021, Alsobrooks lifted most of the county's COVID-19 restrictions, citing a decline in COVID-19 cases. She also joined local leaders in sending a letter to Governor Hogan encouraging him to impose a temporary statewide eviction moratorium to give local jurisdictions more time to set up rent relief programs. In August 2021, Alsobrooks reinstated the county's indoor mask mandate following an increase in COVID-19 cases from the Delta variant. The county's mask mandate was lifted on February 28, 2022.