Hogan’s rival capitalizes on Trump’s endorsement in Maryland Senate contest

LANHAM, Maryland — Democrat Angela Alsobrooks is urging voters to reject former Gov. Larry Hogan, her Republican opponent in Maryland’s Senate race, by citing the surprise endorsement he received from former President Donald Trump on Thursday.

“[The GOP] is, in this moment, led by Donald Trump, and we are gravely concerned because we know that Larry Hogan will be voting to empower these [Senate] committee chairs that will turn America backwards,” Alsobrooks, the executive of Prince George’s County, told the Washington Examiner on Friday.

Hogan is relying on the centrist image he developed as a popular two-term governor of deep-blue Maryland, a reputation he built, in part, by his criticism of Trump. Most recently, he earned the ire of Trumpworld for calling on voters to respect the verdict as the former president was found guilty of falsifying business records in his hush money case.

However, the endorsement, which Hogan swiftly rejected, is being used by Democrats to argue that Hogan could be the GOP vote that hands Republicans a Senate majority. Democrats control the chamber by a single vote and face serious challenges in a half-dozen battleground states.

“Donald Trump feels comfortable enough that he endorsed Larry Hogan, believing that he would give a majority to the Republican Party in the Senate,” Alsobrooks said shortly after accepting an endorsement from a local labor union in Lanham, Maryland, a few miles northeast of the Washington, D.C., border.

“The caucuses that we are concerned that Larry Hogan would be voting [with] is not just Donald Trump,” she continued. “We know also that [Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC)] would be head of the Judiciary Committee. We have the Senate majority leader position that Larry Hogan would be voting with his caucus to empower and the Supreme Court [for] who our next nominee will be.”

The Hogan campaign dismissed Alsobrooks’s talk of committee assignments by casting him as an outsider candidate. “Governor Hogan’s not focused on committee chairs or whatever it is Washington obsesses about,” a spokesperson said in a statement. “He’s focused on listening to Marylanders, solving problems, and getting things done.”

Earlier, his team rebuffed Trump’s endorsement, which came Thursday following a meeting with House and Senate Republicans in the nation’s capital to strategize ahead of the elections.

“I’d like to see him win,” Trump told Fox News’s Aishah Hasnie when asked if he’d support Hogan. “I think he has a good chance. I would like to see him win. We got to take the majority. We have to straighten out our country, so I’d like to see him win. He’s somebody that can win.”

The praise from the presumptive GOP presidential nominee was unexpected given Hogan’s years of criticism of Trump and his campaign just weeks earlier declaring Hogan politically dead for taking the neutral stance on Trump’s New York criminal conviction.

The Hogan campaign told the Washington Examiner it would not be reciprocating, and a separate source said there was no warning ahead of time from Trump’s team.

“Gov. Hogan has been clear he is not supporting President Trump, just as he didn’t in 2016 and 2020,” the spokesperson said.

Still, Senate Democrats hope Trump’s seal of approval is a kiss of death in Maryland, where Hogan must appeal to centrist Democrats and independents, in addition to Republicans.

“Donald Trump wants Republican Larry Hogan in the Senate,” a curt statement from the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, the campaign arm of Senate Democrats, after Trump announced his support read.

Alsobrooks also accused Hogan of having “flip-flopped on a number of bases” since clinching the Republican nomination last month, most notably on abortion access.

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Hogan recently announced he considers himself “pro-choice” and backs codifying Roe v. Wade into federal law, a position that could blunt Democratic attacks but was one he refused to take during the primary. On recent Democratic bills in the Senate to preserve access to contraception and in vitro fertilization, as well as to enhance southern border security, Hogan has taken a middle-of-the-road approach and declined to choose sides.

“These are positions he took just this year,” Alsobrooks said. “That’s the reason that we must not give this Republican caucus and allow Larry Hogan to help the Republican Party of this country gain a majority in the Senate.”