By John McCormack
The Dispatch
June 17, 2024
Read the full article here.
Incumbent Republican congressmen are retiring in droves amid frustration with their dysfunctional House majority. Three of the most prominent bipartisan dealmakers in the Senate—Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, Joe Manchin of West Virginia, and Mitt Romney of Utah—decided to head for the exits rather than be purged in their respective primary elections or face likely defeat in November.
Against this backdrop, why on earth did Larry Hogan, the moderate Republican former governor of Maryland, decide to run for the United States Senate in 2024?
…
The collapse that week of a bipartisan deal in the Senate to reform border policy and provide aid to Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan “was sort of like a turning point,” Hogan said. “Trump said, ‘Don’t do it, don’t vote for it.’ So everybody changed their position.”
Hogan says that’s what propelled him to change his mind. “This is such B.S.,” Hogan recalled thinking. “They need some grown-ups down there. I think I can go down and kind of talk some sense into people where we get some things done.” With his wife’s blessing, Hogan filed to run for Senate hours before the Friday filing deadline in the race to replace retiring Democrat Ben Cardin.
Despite his popularity as governor—Hogan left office in January 2023 with an approval rating in the high 70s—it would be an understatement to say that Hogan has his work cut out for himself in November.
…
While Alsobrooks is campaigning to “abolish” the 60-vote rule, Hogan believes “we absolutely ought to keep it,” he told The Dispatch. “The filibuster requires you to persuade people and to find compromise and reach that middle ground, which I think is a good thing,” Hogan said. Without the filibuster, Hogan warned the country would be “swinging back and forth every four years with crazy policy.”
The filibuster is just one matter of many on which Hogan distinguishes himself from Alsobrooks. “I think we’re different on almost every single issue,” he said. Asked to name key differences, Hogan focused on spending and crime. “We left the state in the best fiscal shape it’s been in years,” Hogan said, but “both Prince George’s County and the State of Maryland are now being downgraded, put on a threat advisory, because they’re going too far in debt, spending too much money, and spending beyond their means.” (While the county and state have not lost their AAA bond-rating status, Moody’s recently revised its “outlook” for Prince George’s County and the state of Maryland from stable to negative.)
Alsobrooks “slashed police budgets in Prince George’s County,” Hogan said, adding that the county is experiencing a shortage of hundreds of police officers. “The crime is completely out of control. Murders have doubled under her watch. Carjackings are up 600 percent. She’s very soft on crime. I’m very tough on crime. I pushed tougher sentences for repeat violent offenders and people that commit felonies with a handgun. She was not in favor of that.”
…
Hogan won his first race for governor by 4 points in the 2014 red wave and managed to win reelection by 12 points in the 2018 blue wave, becoming only the second Republican governor the state has reelected. “The first time I ran it was the biggest surprise upset in America,” Hogan told The Dispatch. “They said it was impossible. We’ve done the impossible twice already. I just have to do it three times in a row.”
If Hogan does win, it will be due in no small part to the fact that many voters simply like him and his record. On the campaign trail last week, Hogan moved with ease as he began the day touring and speaking to factory workers at Marlin Steel in Baltimore. “If this Senate thing doesn’t work out, I might learn how to weld,” he said. Over lunch at the Essen Room, a Jewish deli in Pikesville, he was mobbed by supporters. After our interview outside WildFlower florist shop in Glen Burnie, a man approached Hogan to shake his hand as if he were a rock star.
“He’s a great man,” Carlos Suncar of Silver Spring told The Dispatch. “I like everything.” Suncar, who immigrated to the United States from the Dominican Republic in 1989, characterized Biden as too soft on immigration and Trump too tough. When it comes to the top of the ticket, “I think I’m going to leave that box empty because I don’t like Biden, I don’t like Trump, so I’m only going to vote for senator, Mr. Hogan.”
