Former Gov. Larry Hogan (R-MD) announced his candidacy for U.S. Senate in Maryland on Friday, hours before the state’s filing deadline, in a blow to Democrats.
The surprise candidacy from the moderate Hogan in blue Maryland, first reported by Politico, further complicates the contours of the 2024 election battlefield for Democrats, who have a razor-thin Senate majority and are on defense in far more states than Republicans. Now, should Hogan win his party’s nomination, they will also have to defend an open seat against a popular GOP candidate with strong name identification in a state where Democrats have won every U.S. Senate election since 1986,
In his announcement video, Hogan states that “Washington is broken” and “willingness to put country over party has become far too rare” while referencing his father, late Rep. Larry Hogan Sr. (R-MD) and his votes to impeach late President Richard Nixon:
I am running for the United States Senate – not to serve one party – but to stand up to both parties, fight for Maryland, and fix our nation's broken politics. It’s what I did as Maryland’s governor, and it’s exactly how I'll serve Maryland in the Senate. Let’s get back to work. pic.twitter.com/d0TuZchAtN
— Governor Larry Hogan (@GovLarryHogan) February 9, 2024
“We desperately need leaders willing to stand up to both parties, leaders that appreciate that no one of us has all the answers or all the power because this is not just about the differences between the right and the left,” Hogan goes on to contend. “This is about the difference between right and wrong.”
“This is a fight for Maryland and America’s future, and that is a fight worth fighting. And that is why I have made the decision to run for the United States Senate,” he adds.
Notably, Maryland’s deadline for a citizen to file candidacy for a political office in 2024 is Friday at 9:00 p.m. Eastern. Hogan, a staunch critic of former President Donald Trump, seeks to replace outgoing Sen. Ben Cardin (D-MD), who is retiring at the end of his term. Rep. David Trone (D-MD) and Prince George’s County executive Angela Alsobrooks are both vying for the Democrat nomination, as Politico notes.
Rep. David Trone (D-MD) speaks at a news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik).
Prince George’s County executive Angela Alsobrooks delivers the State of the County Budget Address and officially unveils the fiscal year 2024 proposed budget in at the Samuel Riggs IV Alumni Center in College Park, Maryland, on March 15, 2023 (Marvin Joseph/The Washington Post via Getty Images).
Hogan first assumed the governorship after winning the 2014 election over then-Lt. Gov. Anthony Brown (D) by roughly five percentage points. In 2018, he enjoyed a 55.4 percent to 43.5 percent win over his nearest opponent, Democrat Ben Jealous, in a four-person field, and his popularity with Marylanders seemed to grow from there, as he left office in January 2023 with a high approval rating of 77 percent in a poll conducted by Gonzales Research and Media Services, Maryland Matters reported at the time.
Democrats already faced an extremely unfavorable Senate map, with 23 seats up for election in 2024 to only 11 Republican seats. As Breitbart News extensively detailed in a multi-tiered template, the GOP had a realistic opportunity to be competitive in nine of those Democrat seats, while Democrats’ best longshot chances of flipping a Republican seat are in Texas and Florida, where strong incumbents Sens. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Rick Scott (R-FL) are on the ballot. With Hogan’s candidacy in Maryland, ten Democrat seats are realistically in play for the GOP.
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