As discussed on today’s Three Martini Lunch podcast, it’s a free country, and if Maryland’s former governor Larry Hogan really doesn’t want to run for Senate, I suppose he shouldn’t run for Senate.

But Hogan has been an outspoken critic of former president Donald Trump, and made clear, many times, that the GOP should move in a different direction. Hogan has said, repeatedly, that he cares more about ensuring a future for the Republican party than securing his own future in the Republican party.

If Hogan ran for the now open Senate seat in Maryland in 2024, he would have a shot against whoever emerges from the scrum on the Democratic side. It wouldn’t be easy. Maryland is still a heavily Democratic state, and this would be a year with presidential-level turnout. But Hogan has won statewide twice, and in 2018 won the most votes of any gubernatorial candidate in state history to that point. In his two successful gubernatorial bids, Hogan won the votes of a lot of independents and a surprising number of Democrats. He would be a top-tier candidate, well-funded, and no Democrat could take that race for granted. It is unlikely that any other Maryland Republican would have anywhere close to Hogan’s chances of winning the seat. Trumpy Republicans get clobbered in states like Maryland; last year, enthusiastic Trump supporter Dan Cox got a whole 32 percent in the governor’s race.

You’ve probably noticed that so far, a whole lot of GOP presidential primary voters are not itching to move on from Donald Trump. Maybe that will change when Ron DeSantis becomes a declared candidate, maybe it won’t.

But if Hogan wants the GOP to move in a different direction… who’s going to make it happen, if figures like Hogan decide they don’t want to run for office anymore? You can either criticize Trump by giving speeches as a private citizen… or you can run for office, get elected in the Senate, and actually have some leverage to steer the party in another direction. I’m not saying it is going to be easy. Maybe Hogan dreads the prospect of spending six years in a chamber, voting on judicial nominations and the annual rushed vote on the gargantuan omnibus spending bill. I can’t begrudge him for feeling that way. But if he wants a different Republican party, figures like him have to be willing to run, offering a different vision and philosophy. They have to demonstrate that you can win elections with that vision and philosophy — even if it’s in unusual circumstances like a blue state.

Would Hogan lose a primary? That’s possible; Cox beat Hogan’s endorsed successor, cabinet official Kelly Schulz, 52 percent to 43 percent, in the 2022 GOP gubernatorial primary. But Hogan would be no pushover in a primary fight. And if Maryland Republican primary voters choose some no-name Trump cheerleader over a recent two-term governor, then we can then conclude there’s just no helping this state, that the GOP grassroots out there just don’t want to win.

So the question remains: Is Larry Hogan sure he doesn’t want to run for U.S. Senate next year?