Angela Alsobrooks

Her family moved from Seneca, South Carolina to Maryland in July 1956 shortly after her great-grandfather, J.C. James, was killed by a police officer for resisting arrest.

Alsobrooks was raised in Camp Springs, Maryland, and attended Benjamin Banneker High School in Washington, D.C..

Angela Deneece Alsobrooks (born February 23, 1971) is an American lawyer and politician.

Alsobrooks attended the 1992 Democratic National Convention and volunteered for Democratic nominee Bill Clinton's presidential campaign after returning from it.

She earned her bachelor's in public policy at Duke University in 1993, and her J.D. degree from the University of Maryland School of Law in 1996.

She was admitted to the Maryland Bar in 1996.

Alsobrooks first got involved in politics while serving in student government in high school.

She later worked as an intern for House Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton.

After graduating, she 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, where she was assigned to handle domestic violence cases.

In 2000, Alsobrooks worked on the presidential campaign of Vice President Al Gore.

In 2002, she left the state's attorney office to become education liaison for then-County Executive Jack B. Johnson.

In 2003, she was appointed executive director of the county revenue authority.

Alsobrooks was motivated to run for Prince George's state's attorney in 2010 after reading a magazine profile about District Attorney of San Francisco Kamala Harris, soon after reading her book Smart on Crime.

Harris supported Alsobrooks' campaign for state's attorney.

Alsobrooks was first elected Prince George's state's attorney in 2010 and re-elected in 2014.

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 percent, 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.

She also created a Special Prosecutions Unit 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 California Attorney General Kamala Harris to implement a program to reduce recidivism in Prince George's County, mirroring the "Back on Track" program introduced by Harris in California.

Following the outgoing County Executive being term-limited, 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 percent of the vote, defeating eight other candidates, including former Congresswoman Donna Edwards and state senator C. Anthony Muse.

A member of the Democratic Party, she was elected county executive of Prince George's County, Maryland, in 2018 after serving two terms as state's attorney for the county.

Alsobrooks is currently a candidate for the United States Senate in the 2024 election to succeed Ben Cardin.

Alsobrooks was born to father James Alsobrooks, who worked as a distributor for The Washington Post, and mother Patricia Alsobrooks (née James), a receptionist.

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 percent of the vote in the general election.

Upon election, Alsobrooks became 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.

She was sworn in on December 3, 2018.

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.

In November 2022, following Moore's win in the general election, Alsobrooks was named as a co-chair on the transition teams of both Moore and Comptroller-elect Brooke Lierman.

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 percent 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.

Alsobrooks would appoint Manuel Castillo as chief information security officer following this criticism, and would later claim that Latino representation in the county's workforce had increased from 6 percent to 23 percent during her tenure.

On May 9, 2023, Alsobrooks announced her candidacy in the 2024 election for the U.S. Senate from Maryland.