Maryland GOP Gubernatorial Primary a Bitter Trump–Hogan Proxy Battle

During and after his tenure in the White House, there was no love lost between Donald Trump and Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan, who was and remains among the former president’s most outspoken critics from within the Republican Party.

With Hogan term-limited and reportedly pondering a run for the presidency himself, that enmity has carried over into Maryland’s July 19 Republican gubernatorial primary to select the party’s candidate to succeed the popular governor—a Republican twice-elected to lead a Democrat-dominated state.

There are four candidates on the Republican gubernatorial ballot, but the contest boils down to a two-way battle between Hogan-backed Kelly Schulz—a moderate who served in his cabinet as labor secretary and commerce secretary—and Trump-endorsed state Del. Dan Cox—a conservative attorney who sponsored a failed bid to impeach the governor in March.

Maryland Republican gubernatorial candidate Dan Cox meets with Donald Trump in May, six months after securing the former president’s endorsement in his primary clash with Kelly Schultz, who’s backed by Trump critic and term-limited Gov. Larry Hogan. (Courtesy of Cox for Freedom)

The winner of what’s projected to be a tight race between Schultz and Cox in November will face the Democrat who emerges victorious from their nine-candidate primary.

With the state’s July 7 through July 14 early voting period drawing to a close, turnout for primary elections has been light, according to the Maryland State Board of Elections (MSBE). The state’s primary slate includes inter-party races for governor, attorney general, comptroller, one U.S. Senate seat, eight U.S. House seats, and state legislature and local races.

In 2018, the last primary in a non-presidential election year, 872,207 people—about 24 percent of eligible voters—cast ballots, with 30,122 mailing them in.

For the 2022 midterm primaries, more than 500,000 Marylanders have requested mail-in ballots, with about 115,000 having been returned by

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