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“He also said, ‘By the way, we’ve done a poll showing you are beating the leading Democrat by 16 points,’” Hogan told me.
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Then other Republicans started calling Hogan. Among the most persuasive, he said, was former president George W. Bush. The two had a long talk, Hogan recalled. “It was basically, ‘you have an important voice for the party. And I think you’re one of the few that has that voice. And I think being in the Senate would elevate that voice and I think it’s important for the party and the country.’”
What made up Hogan’s mind, however, was seeing Senate Republicans, at the insistence of former president Donald Trump, kill a bipartisan deal to beef up border security and provide funding for Ukraine and Israel.
This happened on the night of Feb. 7 — just two days before Maryland’s filing deadline. “It was something I was really passionate about. And I watched this, where they were [given] everything they said they wanted and they would hold a vote against that,” Hogan said. “And instead of saying, oh my gosh, I never want to be a part of that, I was like, I think I’m going to do it. I think I’m going to go down there and try to basically get some stuff done.”
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While early polling suggests Hogan is in the lead, he insists he does not begin as the front-runner, given that Maryland is one of the bluest states in the country, that it hasn’t elected a Republican to the Senate since 1980 and that Joe Biden beat Trump by 33 points in 2020. Add to that the fact that he has never run for statewide office in a presidential election year — in this case, one in which Trump will be at the top of the ticket.
“Look, I’m the underdog. There’s no question. If history tells you anything, this should [go to] the Democrat. But I think I have an argument to make,” Hogan said.
The Democrats say they have one, too. It is that as much as Hogan styles himself as part of a vanishing breed of moderate, pragmatic Republicans, putting him in the Senate would hand control of the place to its ascendant hard line MAGA forces.
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Meanwhile, two strong Democratic contenders are battling for their party’s nomination to replace retiring Sen. Ben Cardin, which will be decided in the May 14 primary. Early voting starts May 2.
Holding the lead — for now — is Rep. David Trone, the billionaire founder of Total Wine, which is the nation’s largest alcohol retailer. Already, his ads are saturating the airwaves. By the end of January, he had spent $23.2 million, and he told me he is ready to spend $50 million from his personal fortune to win. “I’m likely the only one that can win this seat, that has the resources to hold the seat, given that this is going to be a very expensive race,” he said.
Trone claimed Hogan, who had flirted with the idea of joining a No Labels’ third-party presidential ticket, has no real interest in the Senate, and plans to use the seat as a launchpad for a national race in 2028. “It’s been crystal clear. He wants to be president of the United States, and being a has-been governor four years ago isn’t a steppingstone to that,” he said. “Being a sitting U.S. senator, he can travel the country and build relationships in all the primary states.”
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The other leading Democratic candidate is Prince George’s County Executive Angela Alsobrooks, who has the backing of leading figures in the state’s political establishment, including Van Hollen, Gov. Wes Moore and Rep. Steny H. Hoyer, former majority leader of the House and dean of the Maryland delegation.
Alsobrooks has a solid record both as county executive and a prosecutor, one that has given her a close connection to community issues such as education, economic development and crime. She is Black, as are one-third of eligible voters in Maryland, making it, as one of her strategists noted to me, “the Blackest blue state in the country.” She would also be the Maryland delegation’s only woman. The state’s current all-male representation in Congress is something of a departure from modern history. Even as far back as the mid-1980s, Maryland could boast that nearly half its members were female.
“I represent the core of our base, and we need candidates who inspire, people who can excite the base,” including women and younger voters, said Alsobrooks, who at 53 is more than a decade younger than both Hogan and Trone.
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However, supporters of Alsobrooks are worried that she has gotten off to a slow start. She shook up her campaign team in December, firing her campaign manager and replacing him with Sheila O’Connell, who ran Van Hollen’s first Senate campaign through the primary. So far, Alsobrooks is advertising only in Baltimore.
But while she has no hope of matching Trone’s spending, Alsobrooks is hardly a slouch when it comes to fundraising. By the end of last year, she had brought in close to $5 million. “Angela has enough money to make her case,” Hoyer said. “Who she is, what she is, what she offers are going to be known.”
Alsobrooks’s allies also plan to make an issue of how Trone has spent his money elsewhere over the years. Among the beneficiaries of his largesse have been such hard-right Republicans as Gov. Greg Abbott and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick of Texas. When I asked Trone about these contributions, he described them as simply the cost of doing business and protecting his employees’ jobs in red states. Among other things, Texas requires liquor stores to close on Sunday and bans them from offering discount coupons for alcohol.
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The issue on which the election will turn in Maryland, as elsewhere, might be abortion. A Maryland law in effect since 1991 already protects the right to abortion, but a measure to enshrine it in the state constitution will be on the ballot this fall.
Hogan insists he would take no action to limit the procedure, but has declined to say whether he would support federal legislation patterned after Roe v. Wade that would codify abortion as a right. “I’m not going to get into anything that is a hypothetical,” he told me. That answer is not likely to satisfy many Marylanders.
In the Senate, Hogan says, he has a chance to revive a more traditional brand of Republicanism — more centrist, more open to finding common ground, more willing to stand up to Trumpism. He thinks that even as others of his sort, such as Mitt Romney (R-Utah), are leaving, “I can be more of a voice and maybe that’s the voice that’s lacking,” he said. “If not me, who’s going to step up and be that voice?”
What Maryland voters have to decide, however, is whether having that one voice is more important than the danger of turning over the entire chamber to the most extreme forces on the right.
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Democrats have plenty of things to worry about this fall, but until recently, hanging on to deep-blue Maryland’s opening U.S. Senate seat was not one of those things.
That was until Feb. 9, mere hours before the filing deadline, when former governor Larry Hogan — a moderate Republican who left office last year with a stratospheric 73 percent approval rating — declared he was running.
Now, “the future control of the United States Senate will come down to Maryland,” says Sen. Chris Van Hollen, a Democrat who occupies the state’s other seat. “If Larry Hogan wins in Maryland, it means MAGA Republicans are in charge of the United States Senate. It’s as simple as that.”
Well, maybe not quite that simple.
Even before Hogan’s surprise decision, Democrats were going to have to run the table to hold the Senate, where they currently have a 51-49 majority. (The body’s three independents caucus with them.) If they lose one seat and the Senate splits evenly, control will go to the incoming president’s party, with the vice president holding the tiebreaking vote.
This year’s map could hardly be more challenging for Democrats. West Virginia, even the most optimistic would agree, is lost to them with the retirement of Joe Manchin III. Sherrod Brown of Ohio and Jon Tester of Montana are fighting uphill reelection battles in heavily Republican states. At least five other seats held by Democrats and an independent — Arizona, Nevada, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan — will be closely fought. And there is no place where Democrats are favored to wrest a seat from Republicans.
Hogan’s decision, at least as he tells the story, came together quickly. Many times, he had disavowed any interest in serving in a frustrating, fractious chamber where little gets done these days. He started reconsidering in early January, after receiving an email from Darin Thacker, chief of staff to Sen. Steve Daines (R-Mont.), who heads the Republicans’ Senate campaign operation. Thacker argued that Hogan could make a difference there, and asked the former governor to at least meet with his boss.
“He also said, ‘By the way, we’ve done a poll showing you are beating the leading Democrat by 16 points,’” Hogan told me.
Then other Republicans started calling Hogan. Among the most persuasive, he said, was former president George W. Bush. The two had a long talk, Hogan recalled. “It was basically, ‘you have an important voice for the party. And I think you’re one of the few that has that voice. And I think being in the Senate would elevate that voice and I think it’s important for the party and the country.’”
What made up Hogan’s mind, however, was seeing Senate Republicans, at the insistence of former president Donald Trump, kill a bipartisan deal to beef up border security and provide funding for Ukraine and Israel.
This happened on the night of Feb. 7 — just two days before Maryland’s filing deadline. “It was something I was really passionate about. And I watched this, where they were [given] everything they said they wanted and they would hold a vote against that,” Hogan said. “And instead of saying, oh my gosh, I never want to be a part of that, I was like, I think I’m going to do it. I think I’m going to go down there and try to basically get some stuff done.”
While early polling suggests Hogan is in the lead, he insists he does not begin as the front-runner, given that Maryland is one of the bluest states in the country, that it hasn’t elected a Republican to the Senate since 1980 and that Joe Biden beat Trump by 33 points in 2020. Add to that the fact that he has never run for statewide office in a presidential election year — in this case, one in which Trump will be at the top of the ticket.
“Look, I’m the underdog. There’s no question. If history tells you anything, this should [go to] the Democrat. But I think I have an argument to make,” Hogan said.
The Democrats say they have one, too. It is that as much as Hogan styles himself as part of a vanishing breed of moderate, pragmatic Republicans, putting him in the Senate would hand control of the place to its ascendant hard line MAGA forces.
Meanwhile, two strong Democratic contenders are battling for their party’s nomination to replace retiring Sen. Ben Cardin, which will be decided in the May 14 primary. Early voting starts May 2.
Holding the lead — for now — is Rep. David Trone, the billionaire founder of Total Wine, which is the nation’s largest alcohol retailer. Already, his ads are saturating the airwaves. By the end of January, he had spent $23.2 million, and he told me he is ready to spend $50 million from his personal fortune to win. “I’m likely the only one that can win this seat, that has the resources to hold the seat, given that this is going to be a very expensive race,” he said.
Trone claimed Hogan, who had flirted with the idea of joining a No Labels’ third-party presidential ticket, has no real interest in the Senate, and plans to use the seat as a launchpad for a national race in 2028. “It’s been crystal clear. He wants to be president of the United States, and being a has-been governor four years ago isn’t a steppingstone to that,” he said. “Being a sitting U.S. senator, he can travel the country and build relationships in all the primary states.”
The other leading Democratic candidate is Prince George’s County Executive Angela Alsobrooks, who has the backing of leading figures in the state’s political establishment, including Van Hollen, Gov. Wes Moore and Rep. Steny H. Hoyer, former majority leader of the House and dean of the Maryland delegation.
Alsobrooks has a solid record both as county executive and a prosecutor, one that has given her a close connection to community issues such as education, economic development and crime. She is Black, as are one-third of eligible voters in Maryland, making it, as one of her strategists noted to me, “the Blackest blue state in the country.” She would also be the Maryland delegation’s only woman. The state’s current all-male representation in Congress is something of a departure from modern history. Even as far back as the mid-1980s, Maryland could boast that nearly half its members were female.
“I represent the core of our base, and we need candidates who inspire, people who can excite the base,” including women and younger voters, said Alsobrooks, who at 53 is more than a decade younger than both Hogan and Trone.
However, supporters of Alsobrooks are worried that she has gotten off to a slow start. She shook up her campaign team in December, firing her campaign manager and replacing him with Sheila O’Connell, who ran Van Hollen’s first Senate campaign through the primary. So far, Alsobrooks is advertising only in Baltimore.
But while she has no hope of matching Trone’s spending, Alsobrooks is hardly a slouch when it comes to fundraising. By the end of last year, she had brought in close to $5 million. “Angela has enough money to make her case,” Hoyer said. “Who she is, what she is, what she offers are going to be known.”
Alsobrooks’s allies also plan to make an issue of how Trone has spent his money elsewhere over the years. Among the beneficiaries of his largesse have been such hard-right Republicans as Gov. Greg Abbott and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick of Texas. When I asked Trone about these contributions, he described them as simply the cost of doing business and protecting his employees’ jobs in red states. Among other things, Texas requires liquor stores to close on Sunday and bans them from offering discount coupons for alcohol.
The issue on which the election will turn in Maryland, as elsewhere, might be abortion. A Maryland law in effect since 1991 already protects the right to abortion, but a measure to enshrine it in the state constitution will be on the ballot this fall.
Hogan insists he would take no action to limit the procedure, but has declined to say whether he would support federal legislation patterned after Roe v. Wade that would codify abortion as a right. “I’m not going to get into anything that is a hypothetical,” he told me. That answer is not likely to satisfy many Marylanders.
In the Senate, Hogan says, he has a chance to revive a more traditional brand of Republicanism — more centrist, more open to finding common ground, more willing to stand up to Trumpism. He thinks that even as others of his sort, such as Mitt Romney (R-Utah), are leaving, “I can be more of a voice and maybe that’s the voice that’s lacking,” he said. “If not me, who’s going to step up and be that voice?”
What Maryland voters have to decide, however, is whether having that one voice is more important than the danger of turning over the entire chamber to the most extreme forces on the right.
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