During the Hogan for Maryland Back To Work Bus Tour, Governor Hogan spoke with WUSA’s Adam Longo to discuss his campaign for the U.S. Senate and how he plans to fix the broken politics in Washington.
Maryland Senate candidate Larry Hogan running to get the Republican Party ‘back on the right track’
The former governor needs both Democrats and Trump supporters to win. Can he pull off another longshot campaign victory?
Halfway through his Senate campaign bus tour through Maryland, former two-term Gov. Larry Hogan (R) came across quite at ease as the admitted underdog. Utilizing an almost passive campaign style once prevalent during a long-since-forgotten era in politics, Hogan, it seems, doesn’t want the job of a Senator as much as others want it for him.
His idealistic tone of, ‘I’m going to change the political culture, it’s not going to change me,’ might otherwise be passed off as a typical campaign bloviation if not for his unapologetic criticism of former President Donald Trump and his willingness to openly criticize certain decisions by national Republicans as misguided and hyper-partisan; needling some of the same Republicans who urged him to run. Key among the group that helped convince Hogan to run for the seat being vacated by retiring third-term Senator Ben Cardin (D) was former President George W. Bush.
So, what is it about Hogan’s ‘voice’ that former President Bush finds to be necessary? “I’m trying to get my party back on the right track,” said Hogan. “Get back to a bigger tent party with a more positive and hopeful message that can appeal to more people.”
Hogan navigated eight years as a popular Republican governor in the bluest of blue, Democrat-dominated states. Polling shows his popularity continues to be high in the nearly two years since he left office.
“If people just vote straight party line, there’s no question I’m going to lose the race,” Hogan said with a chuckle. “It would be nearly impossible [to draw a distinction from Trump] if I were somebody new to the scene. But the people of Maryland have known me since 2014 when I was elected. They know exactly what I’m all about. They know what my track record is. And they know, and the polling shows, they know I’m not the same. And it’s exactly what’s missing in Washington.”
