Trump critic and former Maryland governor Larry Hogan won’t run for GOP seat in 2024 presidential race
The IndependentSign up for the daily Inside Washington email for exclusive US coverage and analysis sent to your inbox Get our free Inside Washington email Get our free Inside Washington email SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy policy Larry Hogan, the former governor of Maryland who has been considered a potential moderate Republican challenger to Donald Trump, announced on Sunday that he will not run for president in 2024. He also claimed that many in the GOP share his opinion “behind closed doors.” Mr Hogan was a very different kind of Republican than Donald Trump, serving eight years over multiple terms as governor of Maryland, even though the state went two-thirds for Joe Biden in 2020. “I’d watched as the president downplayed the outbreak’s severity and as the White House failed to issue public warnings, draw up a 50-state strategy, or dispatch medical gear or lifesaving ventilators from the national stockpile to American hospitals,” Mr Hogan wrote in the Washington Post in 2020, detailing how he had to personally source Covid tests from South Korea in the absence of support from the White House. “Eventually, it was clear that waiting around for the president to run the nation’s response was hopeless; if we delayed any longer, we’d be condemning more of our citizens to suffering and death.” Such stances may have won Mr Hogan support in a more liberal state like Maryland, but polls suggest firebrand Republicans are still in the leading position as potential candidates jockey for the 2024 GOP nomination.