Ex-Maryland Gov. Hogan won’t challenge Trump in 2024
ANNAPOLIS, Md. — Larry Hogan, the former Republican governor of Maryland who positioned himself as one of his party’s fiercest critics of Donald Trump, said Sunday he will not challenge the ex-president for the GOP’s White House nomination in 2024.
“I would never run for president to sell books or position myself for a Cabinet role,” the 66-year-old Mr. Hogan wrote in The New York Times. “I have long said that I care more about ensuring a future for the Republican Party than securing my own future in the Republican Party. And that is why I will not be seeking the Republican nomination for president.”
The move is a recognition that while many in the GOP are considering ways to move on from the Trump era, there is little appetite among primary voters for such a vocal critic of the former president. Other prominent Trump adversaries, including former Reps. Liz Cheney, of Wyoming, and Adam Kinzinger, of Illinois, don’t appear to be making moves toward a campaign at the moment.
For now, that leaves Mr. Trump as the leading figure in the early field of Republican candidates.
So far, he faces just three formal challengers: his former U.N. ambassador Nikki Haley, entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy and Michigan businessman Perry Johnson.
Others, including former Vice President Mike Pence, ex-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott, may join in the coming months. One possible candidate, former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson, said Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union” that “March is a message month” and that Republicans “need to have all alternatives” to Mr. Trump. “We don’t need to be led by arrogance and revenge in the future.”
Some Trump rivals, such as Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, could wait until late summer to officially announce their campaigns.
In an interview with CBS’ “Face The Nation,” Mr. Hogan insisted the prospect of competing against Mr. Trump didn’t factor into his decision.
“He’s very tough,” Mr. Hogan said. “But, you know, I beat life-threatening cancer. So having Trump call me names on Twitter didn’t — didn’t really scare me off.”
“It’s mostly about the country and about the party,” Mr. Hogan added. “It was a personal decision. It was like, I didn’t need that job. I didn’t need to run for another office. It was really I was considering it because I thought it was public service and maybe I can make a difference.”
Mr. Hogan wrapped up his second term as governor in January, serving for eight years in a state where Democrats outnumber Republicans by a 2-to-1 margin. He was Maryland’s second Republican governor ever to be re-elected.
Some Republicans had hoped that Mr. Hogan, emerging as the new best hope of a small group of “Never Trump Republicans,” would challenge Mr. Trump in 2020. But a year after Mr. Hogan’s reelection in 2018, he said that while he appreciated “all of the encouragement” he had received to run for president, he would not. Mr. Hogan told The Associated Press he had no interest in a “kamikaze mission.”
In the past two presidential elections, Mr. Hogan said he did not vote for Mr. Trump, the party nominee. Mr. Hogan said he wrote in the name of his father, former U.S. Rep. Larry Hogan Sr., in 2016 and the late President Ronald Reagan in 2020.
Mr. Hogan won his first term as governor in 2014 in an upset, using public campaign financing against a better-funded candidate. Running on fiscal concerns as a moderate Republican businessman, Mr. Hogan tapped into frustration from a variety of tax and fee increases over the eight previous years to defeat then-Lt. Gov. Anthony Brown.
Mr. Hogan had never held elected office before and in his first year as governor, he focused on pocketbook issues. He lowered tolls, an action he could take without approval from the General Assembly. But he was also presented with challenges, including unrest in Baltimore following the death of Freddie Gray in police custody in 2015.