Former Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele will not launch a bid for Maryland governor.
“I made the decision to stand down this round,” Steele, Maryland’s lieutenant governor from 2003-07, told the Baltimore Sun.
Steele seriously considered entering the race and had even formed an exploratory committee. But Steele’s announcement means he will not launch an attempted comeback bid this cycle.
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Steele, who was the first black national Republican Party chairman and oversaw the party’s big wins in 2010, is now an MSNBC commentator and frequent critic of former President Donald Trump and the direction of the Republican Party.
“It’s not something the family wants me to do right now,” Steele said. “My wife has never been a big fan of the political landscape. At the end of the day, you can’t be governor without the first lady.”
Not being in lockstep with Trump might have helped Steele in a general election had he chosen to run, as Democratic voters in Maryland outnumber Republicans approximately 2-1. Steele may have been able to brand himself as a Republican willing to cross the aisle, as the state’s incumbent Gov. Larry Hogan has done. Hogan is one of a trio of popular Republican governors in blue states. But Steele might not have won over enough conservative primary voters to secure his party’s nomination.
Steele said that today’s Republican Party has broken from its guiding principles and isn’t doing enough outreach to minority voters.
“I’m concerned about the drift that’s taking away from democratic principles,” he said, arguing that Trump pushed a “big lie” with his unfounded claims of election fraud.
“I’m concerned people believe in the big lie, because why would you ever want to believe a lie?” Steele said. “There was no corruption in this last election. There was no fraud.”
But Steele said Trump was not a factor in his decision.
“If you don’t know how to run a campaign through that gauntlet, then you shouldn’t be in the game,” he said. “That was never a consideration for me to try to figure out how to navigate that. The Republicans in Maryland know me.”
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Steele is a former chairman of the Maryland Republican Party. In 2002, Rep. Robert Ehrlich tapped Steele as his running mate in the Republican ticket’s successful gubernatorial bid. Steele ran unsuccessfully for Senate in 2006, losing to Democratic Sen. Ben Cardin.
For 2022, Republican candidates in the race for governor include Commerce Secretary Kelly Schulz and Del. Dan Cox, who has been endorsed by Trump.
Declared and likely Democratic candidates in the race include former Maryland Attorney General Doug Gansler and former Labor Secretary Tom Perez, who was previously chairman of the Democratic National Committee.
