ANNAPOLIS, Maryland — In the second half of his second term, Gov. Larry Hogan is looking for his second act after gaining national notoriety as the rare, prominent Republican willing to go to blows with now-former President Donald Trump.
Hogan is showing he is perfectly capable of taking on President Biden, questioning the Democrat’s commitment to bipartisanship and accusing him of capitulating to the teachers unions in his first weeks in office. But the governor’s political relevancy was fueled by intramural sparring with Trump, now semi-retired to Florida. As Hogan mulls a 2024 presidential bid while guiding Maryland’s coronavirus recovery efforts, he is being challenged to reimagine his persona and broaden his national appeal.
“I don’t really care so much about my future in the Republican Party. I just care that there’s a future for the Republican Party,” Hogan told the Washington Examiner this week, during a wide-ranging interview in his spacious office inside the historic Maryland Capitol. “I think somebody has to stand up and fight.”
Hogan, 64, refused to support Trump in the 2016 general election against Democrat Hillary Clinton.
In doing so, he spurned pleas from his good friend and top Trump supporter Chris Christie, then New Jersey’s governor, whom he had endorsed for president in the Republican primary earlier that year. In midterm elections two years later, Hogan was reelected in a landslide in deeply liberal Maryland amid a blue wave that swept most of the country. The victory was fueled by a multiethnic coalition of voters from across the political and socioeconomic spectrum.
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That caught the attention of the national media and piqued the interest of Never Trump Republicans. As the governor’s blunt criticism of Trump’s polarizing leadership style made him a fixture on network and cable television news, Republicans opposed to the 45th president urged Hogan to challenge him in the 2020 GOP primary. Hogan demurred, concluding there was not a market for his brand of pragmatic, can-do conservatism. But the governor did not lose the bug.
“I am talking to a lot of people. There are people encouraging me,” he said. “People are saying: ‘Hey, there’s a whole lane that’s your lane, and there’s a whole lot of people crashing the other lane.’”
Hogan acknowledges Trump’s popularity with grassroots Republicans. The former president might seek the White House a third time in 2024, and most early polling suggests he would be an overwhelming favorite to win the nomination. Yet, Hogan sees more upside than the conventional wisdom suggests in the wake of the Jan. 6 insurrection at the Capitol by Trump supporters.
Hogan believes a path might exist in the primary precisely because he expects most other likely GOP contenders to chase the populist ghost of Trump, leaving a portion of the conservative electorate unsatisfied with their options. Regardless, with his second term expiring in January 2023, the governor seems less worried about flopping than he was two years ago.
He is adamant that alternative Republican voices need to step up to counter a former president that intends to maintain his grip on the party. “Trump can be a major spoiler,” Hogan said. “It’s not only keeping us from straightening out the Republican Party; it could really destroy the Republican Party.”
Hogan and Republicans close to him say there is much more that defines him as a political figure than his opposition with Trump. The governor is more focused on an expansive legislative agenda and dealing with the pandemic and its aftershocks than battling with the former president. Only because Trump insists on countering every inch of criticism, and because he is a magnet for press coverage, is Hogan is identified in relation to their squabbles.
The governor is particularly concerned with the political dysfunction that plagues Congress, and political incivility in the nation generally, which often makes it difficult for Democrats and Republicans to work together to solve problems. Hogan is working through two outside groups to address both issues — and to nurture the political profile he cultivated as a pragmatic conservative who compromises with Democrats to pass critical legislation.
An America United is a political nonprofit organization set up by the governor’s allies to promote his accomplishments in Annapolis and contrast his style to other leading politicians of both parties. In the group’s latest campaign-style video, Hogan’s swift negotiation of a $1.5 billion coronavirus aid package with an overwhelmingly Democratic legislature is juxtaposed against the partisan bickering in Washington surrounding Biden’s proposal for $1.9 trillion in pandemic relief.
The governor is also working No Labels, a nonpartisan political group that urges Democrats and Republicans in Congress to work across the aisle. Hogan recalled a meeting with Biden and other governors in the Oval Office earlier this month during which he pressed the president to compromise with congressional Republicans on coronavirus relief.
“He said: ‘Well, even if we don’t get any Republican votes, it’s going to be bipartisan because 80% of people want us to do this stimulus bill,’” Hogan said, describing his conversation with Biden. “And I said: ‘With all due respect, Mr. President … you can’t just jam this one through, because nobody’s going to want to work with you on other things.’”
