Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan launched his latest attack against Trump-backed gubernatorial candidate Dan Cox this week, decrying the Republican nominee as being mentally unstable.
Hogan, who criticized Cox after he won the GOP primary in July, referred to the Republican nominee as “a nut” and claimed he has “no chance whatsoever” of winning the general election in November. Cox won the GOP nomination after being endorsed by former President Donald Trump, the end result of a GOP proxy war in the state after Hogan backed his challenger, Kelly Schulz.
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“He’s not, in my opinion, mentally stable,” Hogan told WGMD radio on Wednesday. “He wanted to hang my friend Mike Pence and took three busloads of people to the Capitol.”
Cox, a state delegate in Frederick, tweeted in January 2021 that he was organizing buses to transport protesters to the “Stop the Steal” rally that proceeded the Jan. 6 Capitol riot. As rioters breached the Capitol, he tweeted that Pence was a “traitor.” He later apologized after being faced with a legislative ethics investigation, according to the Daily Record, a local news outlet.
Cox faces an uphill battle to be elected as Maryland’s next governor because Democrats vastly outnumber Republicans in the state. Those margins, coupled with Hogan’s attacks on his fellow Republican, make it unlikely that Democratic and independent voters will throw their support behind Cox.
Hogan will continue campaigning for several other Republican candidates running in Maryland, but he said he would not support Cox — noting he would not “automatically endorse every Republican” if he disagreed with their platforms.
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“The people I think are worth supporting I’m going to go out and support,” he said. “I’ve been a loyal Republican since I was 18. I’ve been involved in every single election, but that doesn’t mean I’m obligated to support wacky people that I don’t agree with or like anything about them.”
Cox is set to face Democratic nominee Wes Moore as the party seeks to regain control of the governor’s mansion in Maryland. The nonpartisan Cook Political Report has categorized the race as leaning Democratic, leaving Cox with a disadvantage.
