CUMBERLAND — It is just after noon on Friday, and the snow, ice, and freezing rain has been pounding the western end of the state since the night before. Still, the torrid weather has done little to cause former Maryland governor Larry Hogan to be late to any of his stops on the first of his three-day campaign bus tour officially kicking off his run for the U.S. Senate.

After early morning visits to a coffeehouse in Oakland, a fulfillment center in Grantsville, and the industrial construction company Beitzel Corporation, the Republican Hogan pulls up to the Western Maryland Works tucked along a stream by an industrial park in suburban Cumberland.