Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan killed speculation from hopeful Republicans that he might run for Senate in 2022, saying he would “take a look what the future holds” after his term expires in 2023.
“I want to put to rest a question some of you have been asking me. I want to let you know that I will not be a candidate for the United States Senate,” Hogan said Tuesday during a news conference. “I sincerely appreciate the people who have been urging me to consider it … But as I have repeatedly said, I don’t aspire to be a senator.”
In other words, Hogan is interested in running for president in 2024.
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Top Senate Republicans were aggressively recruiting Hogan, 65, to challenge Democratic Sen. Chris Van Hollen in the midterm elections. The second-term governor is broadly popular in Maryland despite the state heavily favoring Democrats in statewide contests, and some initial polling suggested he would be competitive against the incumbent. But while Hogan enjoyed being courted, serving in Congress, as his late father did, never appealed to the Republican chief executive.
Instead, Hogan will continue eyeing a presidential campaign. The governor has a slate of travel planned across the country to support other Republicans on the ballot this November, and he has an outside group, An America United, promoting his political and policy initiatives nationally.
The governor is a sharp critic of former President Donald Trump and readily acknowledges that he never voted for him. But Hogan believes that a Republican like him, who still looks to President Ronald Reagan as his North Star, might be successful in a 2024 primary after Trump lost reelection in 2020.
At the very least, Hogan believes he might have a shot to perform better than expected in the next GOP White House primary if the majority of candidates running are Trump acolytes, leaving him to dominate the non-Trump space.
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Hogan considered challenging the 45th president in the 2020 GOP primary after being wooed by Never Trump Republicans. Ultimately, he concluded that Trump was unbeatable in the primary and took a pass, saying he had no interest in running for president just for its own sake.
