Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan is leaving open the possibility of crossing party lines this November to vote for presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden over President Trump.
“Like everybody else, I get to go into the voting booth and pull the lever for the person that I think is going to do the best job. And we’re going to figure that out in the next 100 days,” the Republican chief executive said Monday in an interview with conservative talk radio host Hugh Hewitt. “I’m going to try to make that decision like everybody else in America.”
Hogan is a Trump critic who weighed a 2020 campaign to challenge the president’s renomination in the GOP presidential primary.
The governor opted against, concluding there was little appetite for his brand of centrism inside the Republican Party and no path to victory. Despite Hogan’s longstanding differences with Trump, which have extended to the president’s handling of the coronavirus, Hewitt expressed surprise that the Marylander might not support the GOP ticket in the upcoming election.
“You know, every Republican governor out there, I expect to say I’m with the ticket,” Hewitt said. “Now you’ve been a Reagan conservative since ’76. You’re not going to vote for Donald Trump over Joe Biden? That’s not easy to answer?”
Hogan said it was not, recalling that he opposed Trump in the general election four years ago.
“I mean, there’s, there are other choices,” the governor said. “I didn’t make that choice between Hillary [Clinton] and Donald Trump the first time. I did a write-in for my dad, who I had a lot of respect for, and who we could probably touch on with your Nixon background there. But you know, it’s, it’s not a black or white decision.”
Hogan’s father, who died in 2017, served in Congress during Watergate and was one of the first Republicans to break with President Richard Nixon during that scandal. Hogan, who has not ruled out running for president in 2024, joined Hewitt’s program to promote his new book, Still Standing.
