Former Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan says he will not problem Trump in 2024 main

Former Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan, a Republican, is pictured in 2022. He mentioned on Sunday that he won’t run for the White Home in 2024, after lengthy positioning himself as a potential various to the previous president. John Locher/AP cover caption

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John Locher/AP

Former Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan, a Republican, is pictured in 2022. He mentioned on Sunday that he won’t run for the White Home in 2024, after lengthy positioning himself as a potential various to the previous president.

John Locher/AP

ANNAPOLIS, Md. — Larry Hogan, the previous Republican governor of Maryland who positioned himself as considered one of his get together’s fiercest critics of Donald Trump, mentioned Sunday he won’t problem the ex-president for the GOP’s White Home nomination in 2024.

“I might by no means run for president to promote books or place myself for a Cupboard function,” the 66-year-old Hogan wrote in The New York Instances. “I’ve lengthy mentioned that I care extra about guaranteeing a future for the Republican Occasion than securing my very own future within the Republican Occasion. And that’s the reason I can’t be looking for the Republican nomination for president.”

The transfer is a recognition that whereas many within the GOP are contemplating methods to maneuver on from the Trump period, there’s little urge for food amongst main voters for such a vocal critic of the previous president. Different outstanding Trump adversaries, together with former Reps. Liz Cheney of Wyoming and Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, don’t look like making strikes towards a marketing campaign in the intervening time.

For now, that leaves Trump because the main determine within the early area of Republican candidates.

Up to now, he faces simply three formal challengers: his former U.N. ambassador Nikki Haley, entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy and Michigan businessman Perry Johnson.

Others, together with former Vice President Mike Pence, ex-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott, might be a part of within the coming months. One potential candidate, former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson, mentioned Sunday on CNN’s State of the Union that “March is a message month” and that Republicans “have to have all options” to Trump. “We don’t should be led by conceitedness and revenge sooner or later.”

Some Trump rivals, reminiscent of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, may wait till late summer season to formally announce their campaigns.

In an interview with CBS’ Face The Nation, Hogan insisted the prospect of competing towards Trump didn’t issue into his determination.

“He’s very robust,” Hogan mentioned. “However, you recognize, I beat life-threatening most cancers. So having Trump name me names on Twitter didn’t — didn’t actually scare me off.”

“It’s largely in regards to the nation and in regards to the get together,” Hogan added. “It was a private determination. It was like, I didn’t want that job. I didn’t have to run for an additional workplace. It was actually I used to be contemplating it as a result of I assumed it was public service and perhaps I could make a distinction.”

Hogan was a two-term Republican governor in closely blue Maryland

Hogan wrapped up his second time period as governor in January, serving for eight years in a state the place Democrats outnumber Republicans by a 2-to-1 margin. He was Maryland’s second Republican governor ever to be reelected.

Some Republicans had hoped that Hogan, rising as the brand new finest hope of a small group of “By no means Trump Republicans,” would problem Trump in 2020. However a yr after Hogan’s reelection in 2018, he mentioned that whereas he appreciated “all the encouragement” he had acquired to run for president, he wouldn’t. Hogan instructed The Related Press he had no real interest in a “kamikaze mission.”

Prior to now two presidential elections, Hogan mentioned he didn’t vote for Trump, the get together nominee. Hogan mentioned he wrote within the identify of his father, former U.S. Rep. Larry Hogan Sr., in 2016 and the late President Ronald Reagan in 2020.

Hogan received his first time period as governor in 2014 in an upset, utilizing public marketing campaign financing towards a better-funded candidate. Working on fiscal considerations as a reasonable Republican businessman, Hogan tapped into frustration from quite a lot of tax and price will increase over the eight earlier years to defeat then-Lt. Gov. Anthony Brown.

Hogan had by no means held elected workplace earlier than and in his first yr as governor, he centered on pocketbook points. He lowered tolls, an motion he may take with out approval from the Basic Meeting, lengthy managed by Democrats. However he was additionally offered with challenges, together with unrest in Baltimore following the demise of Freddie Grey in police custody in 2015. Hogan despatched the Nationwide Guard to forestall additional rioting.

In June of that yr, he was recognized with stage 3 non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma however continued working whereas receiving therapy. He has been in remission since November 2015.

In 2018, he grew to become solely the second Republican governor within the historical past of the state to win reelection, defeating former NAACP President Ben Jealous.

Hogan has lengthy been upfront about his distaste for Trump as president.

In 2020, as chair of the Nationwide Governors Affiliation, Hogan criticized Trump for delaying a nationwide coronavirus testing technique, saying the president was enjoying down the virus’ risk regardless of grave warnings from prime nationwide consultants.

“I didn’t exit of my approach to criticize the president,” Hogan mentioned. “However not like quite a lot of Republicans, I’m not the man that’s simply going to take a seat down and shut up and never get up and say one thing if I believe one thing’s going improper.”

Describing the riot on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, as “one of many darkest days in American historical past,” Hogan mentioned Trump ought to have resigned or been faraway from workplace.

“The those that attempt to whitewash Jan. 6 as if nothing occurred are delusional. It was an assault on democracy,” Hogan instructed the AP late final yr.

Trump and Hogan have been engaged in a proxy battle of kinds within the 2022 election. Hogan’s decide to succeed him as governor was Kelly Schulz, who was labor secretary and commerce secretary in his administration. She misplaced within the Republican main to Trump-endorsed Dan Cox, a state lawmaker who mentioned President Joe Biden’s 2020 victory shouldn’t have been licensed and who sought to question Hogan for his pandemic insurance policies.

Cox went on to lose the November basic election by a big margin to Democrat Wes Moore.