Maryland’s Larry Hogan releases video calling for change within GOP

Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan (R) released a video Monday calling for the Republican Party to chart a new path forward in the years ahead, a move likely to stoke further speculation that he is moving toward a White House run in 2024.

The video, released by Hogan’s advocacy group An America United, draws heavily on a speech the Maryland governor gave last month at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Institute, in which he warned of pending political trouble for the GOP and outlined and called on the party to expand its electoral coalition moving forward.

“We are once again at a time for choosing,” Hogan says in the video. “Are we going to be a party that can’t win national elections or are we willing to do the hard work of building a durable coalition that can shape our nation’s destiny.”

“Look, I’m a guy that tells it like it is,” he continues. “So here’s a truth that our party needs to hear: No one will listen to our message if they don’t believe that we’re listening to them.”

The video is likely to fuel speculation that Hogan may be moving toward a 2024 presidential campaign. Allies of the Maryland governor say that he has not yet made a decision on a White House bid, but he has also refused to rule one out. 

In an interview on Bloomberg’s “The David Rubenstein Show: Peer-to-Peer Conversations” last month, Hogan said that he is not “ready to launch any campaigns” and that he is focused on serving out the remainder of his term as governor, which ends in 2023. But he also said he wants to be “part of the discussion about where we go as a party and where we go as a country” in the years ahead.

Hogan has emerged as a rare Republican critic of President Trump, and has spoken particularly harshly of the president’s response to the coronavirus pandemic. He briefly floated the notion of a primary challenge to Trump last year, though ultimately decided against launching one.

Hogan has advocated for a more compromise-minded approach to politics, and has pointed to his electoral success in Democratic-leaning Maryland as evidence of his broad political appeal.

The video comes as Trump has floated the idea of another presidential campaign in 2024, a prospect that has largely frozen the field of potential GOP candidates, who are wary of being seen as challenging the president. But Trump’s future political plans are unlikely to deter Hogan, who has long spoken about the need to break away from the president’s divisive brand of politics.

In the video released Monday, Hogan touted his role as the chairman of the National Governors Association during the early months of the coronavirus pandemic, casting himself as a member of the “get-to-work and get-things-done school of politics” and “one of the most popular governors in America.”

“I for one refuse to give in and accept that anger has taken the place of the common good,” Hogan says. “I refuse to give up and accept that the best days of the GOP and of America are a thing of the past.”