Can ex-governor’s anti-Trump stance swing key Senate seat for Republicans?

At a conservative thinktank on 14th Street in Washington DC, awaiting Larry Hogan, the Republican candidate for US Senate in Maryland, one staffer turned to another. "It's nice having something to vote for, for a change," the staffer wryly said. Shortly after, the former governor arrived for his speech at the Jewish Institute for National Security of America (Jinsa), part of his campaign to win in a state that hasn't elected a Republican senator since 1980.

When he left the executive mansion in Annapolis last year, Hogan told his friendly audience, he had governed for eight years as a popular moderate but had not been looking for another job - "And frankly, I didn't yearn to be a part of the divisiveness and dysfunction in Washington," he said.

"But when I saw a bipartisan package to secure our border and to support Israel, Ukraine and Taiwan and other American allies fail because people were told [by Donald Trump] to vote against a critical [immigration] bill that they claimed to be for, it made me frustrated enough that I knew I had to step up and try to do something about the mess in Washington."

Washington is not Maryland but the Old Line State is just a few miles up 14th from Jinsa. There, Hogan faces the Prince George's county executive, Angela Alsobrooks, for an open seat in November - a race in which the Democrat, who if she wins will be only the third Black woman ever elected to the US Senate, enjoys significant polling leads.

The race has become potentially decisive in determining Senate control, and a test of anti-Trump sentiment on the right. Significant spending and endorsements are pouring in. Highly regarded as a local leader and "tough on crime" Democrat, Alsobrooks defeated a DC establishment candidate, the congressman David Trone, in her primary and is now piling on praise from party grandees. She recently released an ad featuring Barack Obama and secured support from the Washington Post.

On Thursday night, the two candidates will meet for a high-stakes debate.

In practical terms, it takes 51 votes - or 50 if your party holds the presidency - to control the Senate. Democrats currently hold it 51-49 but face tough contests to hold seats in Republican-leaning states such as Montana and Ohio. It means Maryland counts this year, and Hogan's toughest challenge may lie in persuading enough Democratic voters they can trust him should Republicans retake the chamber with him as the 51st vote. In turn, Democrats know that if they cannot hold so deep blue a state as Maryland, they will in all likelihood lose control of the Senate.