Larry Hogan’s Bold Gamble on Embracing the Middle Ground

DAVIDSONVILLE, Maryland — Former Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan isn’t shying away from being a political punching bag for liberals and conservatives as a centrist Republican running for Senate in Maryland. In fact, he’s embracing it.

“Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right,” Hogan told a crowd of supporters at a campaign event Saturday as he was introduced to the tune of Stealers Wheel’s “Stuck in the Middle with You.” “Here I am, stuck in the middle with you.”

In the deep blue state, Hogan’s core message to voters is synonymous with the famous track — and why the former two-term governor quipped to reporters that it should become his campaign’s official theme song.

Hogan is running to become the first Republican elected to the Senate in Maryland since 1980 in the open seat being vacated by retiring longtime Sen. Ben Cardin (D-MD).

At a barbecue fundraiser attended by several hundred people on a cold and rainy afternoon in Davidsonville, roughly 45 minutes east of Washington, Hogan repeatedly went after Democrats and his own party for allowing “divisiveness and dysfunction” to fester in the capital city.

“It seems as if the loudest and angriest voices get all the attention,” Hogan said. “It seems like they’re more interested in arguing and screaming at one another on Twitter rather than coming together to try to come up with common sense solutions to the serious problems that face us.”

Hogan boasted to reporters that he’s “probably the best one in the country” at being willing “to stand up to the current president, the former president, the other party, or my own party.”

With early voting already underway in the Old Line State’s primaries, Hogan will find out on May 14 which Democrat he’ll go head-to-head with in the general election: Rep. David Trone (D-MD) or Prince George’s County Executive Angela Alsobrooks. Hogan has catapulted Maryland’s contest to one of the most closely watched races in the country with control of the Senate hanging in the balance.

Hogan insisted it doesn’t matter which Democrat he faces in November because he’s “running against the broken politics and the system in Washington.”

“I’m not running for one party or against one party,” he told reporters. “Either way, I’m a huge underdog.”

Democrats hold a one-seat majority in the Senate but face a more difficult electoral path to controlling the upper chamber than Republicans, making it the GOP’s most favorable Election Day map in over a decade.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) recently cited Maryland as one of four most prominent states to flip. Still, Hogan said he expects only limited outside help from national Republicans such as McConnell and the party’s Senate campaign arm as it tries to secure victories in battleground races in Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Montana.

Hogan revealed he’s had only “one brief conversation with McConnell” this campaign cycle and said he spoke more to the Senate GOP leader when the Kentucky Republican tried to recruit the former Maryland governor to run to unseat Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) in 2022.

“They’re very limited in what they can do,” Hogan said. “I assume that they’re going to give us all the help they can if I’m the Republican nominee, but that’s not going to win the race for us.”

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Hogan’s visceral dislike of former President Donald Trump, a position he’s unapologetic about even as a Republican, has undoubtedly alienated GOP voters. But Hogan is betting that his middle-of-the-road style politics can create a surge of split-ticket voters who will break Democrats’ decadeslong hold on Maryland’s Senate seats.

“If [voters] just want to vote party line, obviously I’m not going to be elected,” Hogan said.