Davidsonville, Md. — Larry Hogan estimates he turned down Senate Republicans “probably 50 times, quite frankly” before deciding that this time around, he’d give it a go.
“I think it was sometime in January, they came back around again,” the former two-term governor of Maryland told National Review a few minutes after casting his Republican primary ballot last week.
In the end, he said, his wife convinced him to take the leap and run for retiring senator Ben Cardin’s (D., Md.) seat, though a personal phone call earlier this year from former president George W. Bush certainly didn’t hurt. “So, they were not successful for several years, and then I decided that the country was in such bad shape that I thought I could make a difference,” he said, emphasizing his understanding that it’s a tough road ahead. “There’s no question we’re going to be outspent.”
No Republican has won a Senate race here in 44 years. To defy the odds, the popular ex-Republican governor — who won the Senate primary as expected — will likely have to to outrun his own party’s presumptive presidential nominee by double digits. And not just any Republican nominee, but former president Donald Trump, who lost Maryland by 33 points in 2020.
There’s no question that this winsome and press-friendly former chief executive is the underdog in Maryland, where registered Democrats still vastly outnumber Republicans. He is a known critic of Trump, left after eight years in office with sky-high approval ratings, and has a strong legislative record to show for it — all while battling cancer.
For now, at least, he’s also far better-known in the state than his general-election rival, Prince George’s County executive Angela Alsobrooks, whose disciplined primary campaign helped her overcome more than $60 million in personal spending from her chief Democratic rival, Total Wine & More founder and representative David Trone. A series of endorsements from high-profile Maryland Democrats such as first-term governor Wes Moore and former House Democratic leader Steny Hoyer helped her across the finish line.
In a strategy memo last week, Hogan’s chief campaign strategist Russ Schriefer insisted that voters have not yet been introduced to Alsobrooks’s “failed record on crime, budget, education, public safety, and quality of life issues in governing Prince George’s County.”
Still, running for Senate is very different from running for governor. As his state’s chief executive, Hogan held the keys to the governor’s mansion and the veto pen. But if he helps Republicans retake the Senate, his detractors say he’ll be part of a 100-member body and hand the reins to Senate GOP leaders to set the agenda.
“Democrats are rightly concerned that even though Larry Hogan has been independent — even though he’s been critical of Donald Trump — at the end of the day, he’s a Republican,” former Democratic representative Donna Edwards recently told NR. “Now, that doesn’t mean I think that he’s going to be like Ted Cruz or Rick Scott, but he would caucus with Ted Cruz and Rick Scott.”
In short, the theory goes, he’d pad Senate Republicans’ margins and stymie Democratic legislative priorities. Hogan knows this attack line by heart at this point, which is why he’s pitching himself as a centrist check on his own party.
“I’m not just your typical Capitol Hill Republican,” he often says on the stump, telling voters that he’s a “strong, independent voice” who “stands up to” Biden and Trump.
His first policy speech of his primary campaign focused on his unwavering support for Israel amid its war with Hamas, and he’s making sure to remind voters of his bipartisan track record as governor balancing the budget and lowering taxes.
“We worked across the aisle with our Democratic legislature to cut taxes eight years in a row by $4.7 billion,” he told his supporters gathered in Annapolis last week for his primary victory party, moments after taking stage to the Rocky theme song.
He’s tacking to the left on abortion, telling reporters he opposes a national abortion ban, supports codifying Roe v. Wade into federal law, and plans to vote in favor of a state ballot initiative this fall to enshrine abortion rights into Maryland’s constitution. In a $1 million TV ad buy this week, he tells Marylanders he’ll “support legislation that makes Roe the law of the land in every state, so every woman can make her own choice.”
Hogan even speaks kindly about his Democratic successor, Governor Wes Moore. “I know we’re going to be on opposite teams in this political race, but I have nothing but respect for him,” Hogan told NR in a recent interview.
Still, centrist senators are a dying breed, in part because the country has seen a sharp decline in ticket-splitting in recent years. As the race heats up, Hogan would be wise to give Senator Susan Collins (R., Maine) a call, given her unique success significantly overperforming Trump in a state that is reliably blue at the presidential level.
“Between the 2016 and 2020 Senate elections, only one state, Maine, voted for presidential and Senate candidates of opposite parties,” election analyst J. Miles Coleman observed last year in Sabato’s Crystal Ball. But overperforming Trump by 25 to 35 points in Maryland in November? That will be a tough challenge for Hogan, given recent trends highlighted by Coleman: “Since 2016, no major party senatorial nominee has run more than 25 points ahead of their party’s presidential nominee.”
It’s a tough battle, to be sure, but one his supporters are eager to see play out. “There’s a genuineness there that I think a lot of voters saw in 2014 about his political style,” said Maryland’s former Republican lieutenant governor Michael Steele, a political commentator who also previously served as chairman of the Republican National Committee.
This grassroots enthusiasm for Hogan’s Senate run was on full display at his primary election night party last week.
“I don’t agree with him a lot of issues, he’s too liberal for me, but I admire his ability to work across the aisle and to get things done and to listen to people and work as bipartisan,” Annapolis resident Cathy Stamper told NR at that party.
“I just like the way that he comes across. He doesn’t seem like he’s trying to be angry with anybody or whatever, it’s like he’s just trying to talk to you as a normal person,” Maryland resident Alan Powers, a registered Republican, told NR at Hogan’s watch party. Powers thinks if he can survive the nasty political ads, then he “may have a chance” of pulling off a surprise upset in November.