COLLEGE PARK, Maryland — As he campaigns for Senate in one of the bluest states in the country, Larry Hogan is testing the limits of a political strategy: How fast and far can he run from former President Donald Trump.
The Republican former governor of Maryland has publicly rejected Trump’s endorsement, said he won’t vote for him for president, and talks proudly about dispatching National Guard troops to quell the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol.
“From the moment that Donald Trump came down the escalator until today, I have always made it clear exactly where I stand,” Hogan said in a recent speech to a conservative organization in the suburbs northeast of Washington.
It’s a strategy that would be career suicide for most Republicans and is markedly different even from GOP candidates in other blue states. Former professional baseball player Steve Garvey, for example, just dodges questions about Trump in his longshot campaign for Senate in solidly Democratic California.
So far, Hogan’s approach hasn’t delivered the results he needs.