Next Step for Ex-Alsobrooks Foe: He’s Endorsing Her

Jerry Mathis, who until Friday was the Republican candidate for county executive in Prince George’s County, will endorse his former opponent, Democrat Angela D. Alsobrooks, on Thursday. A lifelong Democrat, Mathis said he switched parties and became a candidate to give voters in the overwhelmingly Democratic county more choices. He told Maryland Matters that he decided to endorse Alsobrooks after a chance meeting with her father, Mac Alsobrooks, at a polling place.  Jerry Mathis  The two men discovered— over a conversation that stretched nearly two hours — that they grew up in the same Washington, D.C., neighborhood around the same time, and had lots in common.  “We knew the same people,” Mathis said. “There was a bonding there. And I began to see Angela through the eyes of her father. Then I saw the closeness between her and her father. And I said, ‘You know what, if this woman is anything like her father, that’s a person that I can depend on to help bring about the vision that I’ve always fought for in this county.’”  Mathis met with Angela Alsobrooks after his conversation with her father, and he hopes to keep in touch with her after the election. “I’ve been in the back rooms.  I know where the skeletons are.  I know how the system operates,” he said, adding, “We are forming an alliance.”  The owner of a real estate firm in Fort Washington, Mathis will make his formal endorsement of Alsobrooks Thursday morning outside the Curry County Administration Building in Largo. His decision leaves the Prince George’s Republican Party without a candidate for either of the top county races — executive or state’s attorney.  The party has until Sept. 6 to appoint a candidate for the executive race.  Brandon Cooper, chairman of the county party, refused to comment on Mathis’s withdrawal.   “If they get someone, it’ll be a no-name,” Mathis predicted. [email protected]

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