By James Wright, Special to the AFRO, jwright@afro.com

A decade ago on June 19, Donna Edwards was sworn into the U.S. House of Representatives as the first Black woman to represent Maryland. Last week, Edwards was defeated for county executive for the jurisdiction that she represented as a federal legislator.

As the smoke clears from the June 26 Democratic Party Primary that took place in Maryland and Prince George’s County, it is clear that Edwards’s political career is on the decline. Prince George’s County State’s Attorney Angela Alsobrooks got 61 percent of the vote to Edwards’s 24 percent for the Democratic nomination for county executive.

Donna Edwards is a former U.S. representative and a former candidate for Prince George’s County executive. (Courtesy Photo)

It is interesting to note that in 2016, when Edwards was running for the U.S. Senate, she got 62 percent of the vote in Prince George’s County against the eventual winner of the race, Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.).

What brought about this turn of events?

“There are two things you have to understand about voters in Prince George’s County,” Dr. James Dula, a former president of the Prince George’s County Chamber of Commerce and president of the South County Democratic Club, told the AFRO. “Prince Georgians don’t like negative campaigning, that’s one. And two, what have you done for me lately?”

Dula is in the trenches of county politics and is praised by politicians, political activists and observers for his un-bias views. He said Edwards ran a good campaign technically but “when her political action committee decided to go negative that really hurt her.”

“Alsobrooks’ campaign decided to go high and not low,” he said. Dula said Alsobrooks and her team were “beating the bushes,” meeting people and getting involved in the community.

“Donna was trying to find herself traveling around the country after the 2016 elections while Angela was around,” he said. “Donna was absent. People in this county want to know that if you are running for office or want to have an office, what have you done for them lately.”

Efforts to get a comment from the Edwards campaign were unsuccessful by AFRO press time.