COLLEGE PARK, Md. — As he campaigns for Senate in one of the bluest states in the country, Larry Hogan is testing the limits of political strategy: how fast and far can he run from former President Donald Trump.
The Republican former governor of Maryland has publicly rejected Trump’s endorsement, said he will not vote for him for president and is talking proudly about sending National Guard troops to quell the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol.
“From the moment Donald Trump came down the escalator to this day, I have always made it clear exactly where I stand,” Hogan said recently in a speech to a conservative organization in the northeastern suburbs of Washington.
It’s a strategy that would be career suicide for most Republicans and even differs significantly from Republican candidates in other blue states. Former professional baseball player Steve Garvey, for example, simply dodges questions about Trump in his long-running Senate campaign in solidly Democratic California.
So far, Hogan’s approach hasn’t produced the results he needs.
As recently as early summer, Maryland seemed like a potential boost for Republicans in their bid to regain control of the Senate. That was partly thanks to Hogan, who won his 2018 race for governor by 12 points — an impressive performance in a state where voters chose President Joe Biden by more than 30 points just two years later.
Hogan admitted in a recent interview that his effort to court Republican voters and potential Democratic ticket splitters is not yet producing the numbers he needs to win in November.
“The last two elections, I think I got about a third of the Democrats. We’re not quite there yet. I think we’re in the 20s right now,” Hogan told POLITICO from his campaign bus.
The problem isn’t just with Trump or Hogan. Democratic opponent Angela Alsobrooks has deep political roots as a former county executive of the state’s second-most populous county. She defeated one of the richest men in Congress to win the primaries.
In several summer polls, Hogan was only a few points behind, and in one case dead.
In recent weeks, Alsobrooks has built a more regular double-digit lead. It helped that the rise of Vice President Kamala Harris injected a shot of adrenaline among Democrats in Maryland, where nearly a third of the population is black.
Alsobrooks, who would make history as the first Black woman to represent Maryland in the Senate, describes Harris as a longtime friend and mentor — a stark contrast to Hogan’s attempt to distance himself from the Republican Party’s standard-bearer. The Democrat knows that Hogan is seen as a centrist, but emphatically notes that it does not matter whether Republicans gain control of the Senate.
“Who controls the agenda is important,” Alsobrooks told POLITICO in a phone interview. “No matter what Larry Hogan said, he is one person from that party, and the Senate leadership sets the agenda. That is the truth.”
Alsobrooks has pointed out that Hogan’s praise for Trump’s Supreme Court picks is an area where the two candidates are aligned. But the former governor rejects the idea that he will be the race for a Republican majority in the Senate. The party has a much better chance of success in other states, he says.
“I’m in the bluest state,” Hogan said, comparing himself to other competitive races for Senate Republicans. “They say, ‘You’re going to be 51st [Republican senator].’ What about all those other guys? Don’t they have a better chance?”
Still, Republicans have not given up on the race in Maryland, even as the party has focused on stronger prospects for flipping the chamber, especially Montana. Outside GOP groups are investing heavily in the state in the final weeks of the campaign.
Washington Democrats have acknowledged the competitive nature of the race, despite claims earlier this year that they were not concerned about the Maryland seat.
Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md), whose retirement opened the seat, acknowledged that Alsobrooks faces challenges, especially the fact that she is less known in the Baltimore area.
“We do not underestimate the competitive nature of the elections. Larry Hogan is popular,” he said.
Hogan’s last-minute Senate bid was a surprise to much of Washington, and Democrats had not originally planned to defend the state this cycle. Senate Republicans already had a spectacular map for 2024, which meant they could largely go on the offensive. Without the former governor, Maryland would not have been on the Republican Party’s radar.
Hogan said the Senate’s failed attempt to pass a bipartisan border security treaty motivated him to enter the race.
The bipartisan deal included restrictions on asylum and other border security measures in exchange for more aid to Ukraine. Trump torpedoed the deal and told Republicans to vote against it because he feared it would help Biden in the election.
Hogan said the bill’s defeat gave rise to “choice language” on his side.
“I thought: this is enough. That’s it. “I’m going to run for Senate,” he said. “My wife was there. I said, ‘Honey, what do you think about this?’ … She said, ‘It’s probably better for us if you don’t, right? … Politics is crazy, and it’s not going to be fun.’”
But Hogan recalled her adding, “I know you. If you think you can do something to solve the problem, and you don’t do it and you don’t try, you will never be happy. You’re just standing here shouting at the TV set.’ As I was.”
To “fix it,” Hogan promises to act as a more critical tie-breaking voice in the middle of the House, strengthening the appointment-making middle of the Senate while many current lawmakers in that group are heading for the exit .
Hogan pointed to Sen. Joe Manchin (IW.Va.) — a continued thorn in the side of Democrats who have supported Hogan — as someone he would emulate. Manchin ignored a question from POLITICO about the likelihood that Hogan would give Republicans a majority.
“I’m concerned about the character of the person we put here,” Manchin said. “If you get the right people here, good things will happen.”
Hogan did not directly answer a question about whether he, like Manchin, would consider switching his party affiliation to independent. Instead, he pointed to examples from his past work that he said prove he has an independent mindset.
The key question is how much that will matter to voters, especially now that Alsobrooks regularly goes on air to remind Marylanders that his election would mean a Republican Senate majority.
“What a lot of the campaign really comes down to is she says, ‘But he’s a Republican,’” Hogan said in an interview. “They say, ‘Yes, we know that. It didn’t matter to us. We voted for him anyway.’”
