ANNAPOLIS, Md. (AP) – Larry Hogan, the former Republican governor of Maryland who has become one of Donald Trump’s party’s fiercest critics, said Sunday that he will not challenge the former president for the GOP White House nomination in 2024.
“I will not become president to sell books or position myself for a Cabinet role,” Hogan, 66, wrote in The New York Times. “I have long said that I care more about securing the future of the Republican Party than securing my own future in the Republican Party. And that is why I will not seek the Republican nomination for president.”
The move is an acknowledgment that while many in the GOP are scrambling to move on from the Trump era, there is little appetite among primary voters for vocal critics of the former president. Other prominent Trump foes, including former Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming and Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, do not currently appear to be advancing to the campaign trail.
For now, this leaves Trump as the leading figure in the early field of Republican candidates.
So far, he has only faced three official challenges: former UN ambassador Nikki Haley, businessman Vivek Ramaswamy and Michigan businessman Perry Johnson. Others, including former Vice President Mike Pence, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and South Carolina Senator Tim Scott, may join in the coming months. Some, such as Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, may wait until late summer to officially announce their campaigns.
In an interview that aired on CBS’ “Face The Nation,” Hogan insisted that the prospect of competing with Trump was not a factor in his decision.
“He’s tough,” Hogan said. “But, you know, I beat a life-threatening cancer. So if Trump calls me names on Twitter it’s not — it’s not really scary.
“It’s mostly about country and about partying,” Hogan added. “It’s a personal decision. It seems, I don’t need the job. I don’t need to open another office. It’s true that I considered it because I thought it was a public service and maybe I could make a difference.
Hogan completed his second term as governor in January, serving eight years in a state where Democrats outnumbered Republicans by a 2-to-1 margin. He is the second Republican governor of Maryland ever to be re-elected.
Some Republicans hope that Hogan, who is the latest hope of a small group of “Never Trump Republicans,” will challenge Trump in 2020. But a year after Hogan’s re-election in 2018, he said he appreciates “all the encouragement.” ” He has accepted to run for president, he will not. Hogan told The Associated Press that he had no interest in a “kamikaze mission.”
In the past two presidential elections, Hogan said he did not vote for Trump, the party’s nominee. Hogan said he wrote on behalf of his father, former U.S. Rep. Larry Hogan Sr., in 2016 and the late President Ronald Reagan in 2020.
Hogan won his first term as governor in 2014 in an upset, using public campaign funds against better-funded candidates. Running on fiscal concerns as a moderate Republican businessman, Hogan tapped into the frustration of various tax and fee increases over the past eight years to defeat then-Lt. Governor Anthony Brown.
Hogan had never held elected office before and in his first year as governor, he focused on pocketbook issues. He lowered the tolls, an action he could take without the approval of the General Assembly, long controlled by Democrats. But he was also presented with challenges, including the riots in Baltimore after the death of Freddie Gray in police custody in 2015. Hogan sent the National Guard to prevent further riots.
In June of that year, he was diagnosed with stage 3 non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma but continued to work while receiving treatment. He has been in remission since November 2015.
In 2018, he became only the second Republican governor in state history to win re-election, defeating former NAACP President Ben Jealous.
Hogan has long been vocal about his distaste for Trump as president.
In 2020, as chairman of the National Governors Association, Hogan criticized Trump for delaying a national coronavirus testing strategy, saying the president downplayed the threat of the virus despite serious warnings from national experts.
“I don’t go out of my way to criticize the president,” Hogan said. “But unlike a lot of Republicans, I’m not one to just sit back and be quiet and not stand up and say something is wrong.”
Describing the riots at the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, as “one of the darkest days in American history,” Hogan said, Trump must resign or be removed from office.
“The people who are trying to whitewash January 6th as if nothing has happened are delusional. This is an attack on democracy,” Hogan told the AP late last year.
Trump and Hogan are engaged in a proxy fight in the 2022 election. Hogan’s choice to replace him as governor is Kelly Schulz, who served as labor secretary and commerce secretary in the administration. He lost the Republican primary to Trump-endorsed Dan Cox, a state lawmaker who said President Joe Biden’s victory in 2020 should not be certified and who sought to impeach Hogan over his pandemic policies.
Cox went on to lose the November general election by a large margin to Democrat Wes Moore.