Blue-state Republican breaks MAGA mold

With the GOP focused on putting former President Donald Trump back in the White House, imagining the Republican Party without him at the top might seem premature. But Larry Hogan, the former two-term governor of Maryland, argues the party can’t entertain the idea soon enough.

Hogan is running for Senate as a Republican—and against Trump’s version of the GOP.

“I think the voters of Maryland know me and they know my proven track record of standing up to Donald Trump, to Mitch McConnell, and to the Republican Party,” Hogan said during a televised debate with his opponent in the Senate race earlier this month. “I’ve probably stood up [to them] more than anyone in America. I’m one of their harshest critics. I am not a MAGA person.”

Hogan and his supporters in Maryland are ready to revisit the question that the GOP wrestled with at the end of Trump’s first term as president: Should the party continue pursuing the aims of the “Make America Great Again” movement or look for an alternative?

MAGA has galvanized a wide swath of Republican voters to participate in and contribute reliably to the GOP, Costas Panagopoulos, distinguished professor of political science at Northwestern University, told WORLD. Panagopoulos studies voting behavior and political psychology. He said Trump’s leadership has enabled the GOP to unapologetically pursue long-standing aims such as putting conservative justices on the Supreme Court and passing historic tax cuts.

Trump “has transformed the Republican party in his image by strategically placing … leaders within the party who have considerable influence over what the Republican Party is and what it represents and what it does,” Panagopoulos said.

Amid a slew of MAGA candidates in 2024—like U.S. Senate hopefuls Kari Lake in Arizona or Tim Sheehy in Montana—Hogan sticks out like a sore thumb. Not only does he criticize Trump, but he also supports codifying Roe v. Wade in federal law and says he would vote for universal background checks for firearms purchases. He previously supported U.S. aid to Ukraine and expressed a strong commitment to backing Israel in its war against Hamas.

Keith Whalen, a retired firefighter out of Maryland, has followed Hogan’s Maryland career since he ran for governor in 2014 and plans to vote for him on Nov. 5.

I asked Whalen if the thought of a post-Trump GOP had crossed his mind.

“Yeah, it has.” Whalen said. “I think that if Trump loses the election, it’s even more important to have Larry Hogan in [the Senate]. If Trump loses, the Republican Party is going to try to find who’s going to be the new leader, the new face of the party moving forward. And I don’t know if they look so far to the center like Larry Hogan, but it has to start somewhere.”

Whalen was the union president for Maryland firefighters. He remembers how Hogan approached him in 2014 and pledged to support the union. Whalen was skeptical; unions and Republicans don’t usually get along

“He said ‘even if you don’t endorse me, I’m going to support you because it’s the right thing to do,’” Whalen remembered. “At the time it just sounds like words. And then he proceeded for the next eight years to support public safety, firefighters, and police.”

Most Republicans running for federal office this year have endorsed Trump. Of those who haven’t—including Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, Rep. David Valadao of California, and Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky—none is making a big deal about it on the campaign trail.

“I do NOT recommend this … unless you’re in a state where the outcome is already decided,” Massie said in a post to X that showed his ballot with a write-in vote for Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis for president.

Hogan, by contrast, has promised to be a thorn in the side of Republicans until they begin to move toward the political center. In the October debate between him and Democratic candidate Angela Alsobrooks, Hogan promised to be a “Manchin-like” figure for the GOP, referring to retiring Sen. Joe Manchin, I-W.Va., who caucuses with Democrats and has often clashed with the party’s leaders.

Jill Cohen, another Republican voter out of Maryland, said she would expect nothing else from the former governor, whose views on fiscal and social issues reflect her own. Shortly after Hogan left office, Maryland announced a $555 million budget surplus. Hogan has also promised to maintain abortion access in Maryland and to push pro-abortion policies on a federal level.

“I definitely am socially liberal,” Cohen said. “I don’t mind what you do in your bedroom, I don’t care about what books you read—socially? I guess I lean left. But when it comes to money I’m all to the right.”

Panagopoulos warns against overstating the influence of Hogan’s race because Maryland doesn’t exactly reflect the mood of Republicans throughout the country.

“In a deep blue state where Hogan is running, the conversation is a little more nuanced than that,” Panagopoulos said.

In 2022, Hogan toyed with the idea of running for president. He ultimately decided not to, citing a concern that his entry would only expand an already-crowded GOP field and increase Trump’s odds of winning.

“To once again be a successful governing party, we must move on from Mr. Trump,” Hogan wrote in an op-ed for The New York Times back in 2022.

Panagopoulos thinks Hogan’s opposition to the MAGA movement might open the door for others to make a case for a version of the GOP that looks more like it did before Trump. Panagopoulos believes other would-be GOP leaders such as Govs. Kristi Noem of South Dakota and Chris Sununu of New Hampshire are watching Hogan’s race closely.