GAITHERSBURG, Maryland — According to Maryland Republican Senate candidate Larry Hogan, he will not back either major party’s presidential nominee. This is true even though Vice President Kamala Harris is now running against President Joe Biden.
The former two-term moderate governor told the Washington Examiner on Monday that Harris’s record was too extreme for him to vote for her.
Hogan said, “I still don’t plan to vote for either of the two major party candidates.” “Harris’s policies are terrible and far-left.”
Hogan, who is known for his strong dislike of former President Donald Trump, used an attack line that other Republicans have used on the campaign trail to connect Harris to her more left background as the district attorney for San Francisco.
He said, “I ran for governor because Maryland was being called the California of the East, and I wanted to change that.” “I still do not want to follow the rules of San Francisco. Some of the rules are not right for America.”
He did say nice things about Gov. Josh Shapiro (D-PA), who is on Harris’s short list of possible vice presidential candidates. Hogan, who used to be chairman of the National Governors Association, said that he thinks being a governor is a “great training ground for that kind of a position in the Executive Branch.” He also said that his more moderate political views are similar to Shapiro’s.
“I have a lot of the same political views as Gov. Shapiro.” He tries to lead from the middle because he is a moderate. „He was the first person in the country to support our plans to get rid of the need for college degrees for state jobs,” Hogan said. “I believe he’s trying to borrow some of our moves.”
The race between Hogan and Angela Alsobrooks, the executive director of Prince George’s County, is a surprise. Alsobrooks is running against Hogan to replace retired Sen. Ben Cardin (D-MD), and the winner could decide which party controls the Senate.
Alsobrooks and Harris are good friends, and Alsobrooks has been campaigning with the vice president this year.
Hogan said that even though he “respects and likes” Alsobrooks, “her policies are very far to the left.”
Hogan said of his opponent, “She is as far to the left as Kamala Harris.” “That doesn’t seem like the typical Marylander to me.”
The campaign for Alonge Brooks said in a statement to the Washington Examiner that Hogan was only talking about standing up to Trump.
In other words, Larry Hogan is not going to vote for the person who is running against Trump. The same as in 2020,” Jackie Bush, alsobrooks’s deputy media director, said. “Whenever there is a chance to do something about Trump instead of just talking about it, Larry gives up.”
Democrats’ main attack on Hogan has been to show that he is a Republican who might not support the Trump-supporting part of the party but would help it in the Senate by giving that part of the party more power and maybe even control of the body. Democrats say that abortion rights would be at risk because they plan to use Hogan to pass national limits, which he has said many times he will not support.
Hogan promised to be a unique person in Washington who “stands up to everyone.”
Hogan said, “I think [Alsobrooks] wants the race to be just red vs. blue and white vs. black.” “I believe it’s about issues that matter to people and what we say we’ll do when we get to Washington.”
Since Biden dropped out of the race, the Democrats’ base has become more excited, which gives the party new hope for winning elections all across the country in November. This is likely to make Hogan’s goal of turning a Maryland Senate seat red for the first time in 40 years even harder.
Hogan admitted that “there’s been a bit of a bump,” but he said that it was just a “sugar high” or “honeymoon period” that would end after the Democratic National Convention in Chicago at the end of the month.
“Maybe after Labor Day, most people start to think about who they’re going to vote for in different races,” Hogan said. “It won’t change our race very much,” she said. Our race is very different from that of the other people, and I’m not running for any one party or person. I’ve never been the type to bow down to party leaders.
