Is Larry Hogan Presidential Timber?

Hunter DeRensis

Presidency Domestic Politics, United States

What are his prospects for the Oval Office?

Maryland Governor Larry Hogan is not content with having won reelection. He is now flirting with a potential run for president in the Republican primary in 2020. Neoconservatives, who have been searching far and wide for a plausible candidate, are ecstatic. Last week, New York Times columnist Bret Stephens touted Hogan’s chances, declaring that he “is one of the few who can offer a serious and meaningful alternative to the corroded conservatism we have in Washington today. Stepping forward now would mean stepping fully into his father’s shoes.” His father Lawrence Hogan, a Republican congressman, helped launch impeachment proceedings against Richard Nixon, a fact that Larry alluded to in his second inaugural address a few weeks ago.

Hogan is the first Maryland Republican to win a second term in over sixty years. His record is not that of a traditional Republican conservative. While in office he’s passed increased gun control measures, banned hydraulic fracking in Maryland, declined to vote for Donald Trump in 2016 (instead writing-in his father), and has voiced support for the Paris climate agreement and Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA). He’s also opposed to making abortion illegal. He is slated to become chairman of the National Governors Association.

What are his prospects for the Oval Office? “He mostly has been known as an extremely popular Governor, despite the fact that he’s a Republican in an overwhelmingly Democratic state, and someone who has a pragmatic ‘get it done’ attitude to the business of government…He believes in balanced budgets, but at the same time he represents a wide swath of people across his state,” said Geoffrey Kabaservice, director of Political Studies at the Niskanen Center. “He’s been able to get along with people both in his own party and unite all of the factions, including the people who are very pro-Trump and the people who are not, as well as get along with Democrats in his legislature.”