How a GOP ex-gov’s 'crash course in MAGA-style politics' has 'intensified': analysis

04 June 2024

When former Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan won the GOP nomination in the state's 2024 U.S. Senate race, some Democratic strategists were quick to sound the alarm.

Hogan is a non-MAGA conservative and a Donald Trump critic who has a history of winning statewide races in a deep blue state that President Joe Biden carried by 33 percent in 2020. And he was a popular two-term governor, enjoying a 77 percent approval rating in a Gonzales poll conducted in early 2023.

At a time when Democrats are worried about keeping their small U.S. Senate majority, Hogan's nomination was not good news for their party — as he has a shot at flipping a Democrat-held seat in one of the bluest states on the East Coast.

Regardless, the GOP's MAGA wing — including Republican National Committee (RNC) Co-Chair Lara Trump and Donald Trump adviser Chris LaCivita — is furious with Hogan for tweeting, before Donald Trump was convicted on 34 criminal charges, that "all Americans" should "respect the verdict and the legal process."

In an article published by the conservative website The Bulwark on June 4, journalist Jill Lawrence stresses that "Hogan's crash course in MAGA-style politics has gotten a lot more intense in the last few days."

"As a Senate candidate," Lawrence explains, "the formula that won him two terms as governor is imploding on contact with the MAGA GOP…. Lara Trump, Donald's daughter-in-law and handpicked co-chair of the Republican National Committee, all but threw Hogan under the bus Sunday on CNN's 'State of the Union' over his 'ridiculous' and 'very upsetting' statement last week just before a jury convicted the former president on 34 felony counts."

Lawrence continues, "What triggered her delicate sensibilities? Hogan had posted an anodyne message urging respect for the legal process 'regardless of the result,' and for 'what has made this nation great: the rule of law.'"

Hogan, Lawrence observes, is being reminded that a pro-abortion rights Republican who attended a gay pride festival and is openly critical of Donald Trump is out of place in "today's off-the-rails GOP."

"The MAGA hardliners, who don't represent most of us but are determined nevertheless to be the boss of all of us, are lying in wait," Lawrence warns. "The Senate is particularly easy to muck up and bog down, and they are ready…. He may have a feeling he's not in Maryland anymore, and he'd be right. Planet MAGA is home for the GOP these days — and Larry Hogan is an alien."

Jill Lawrence's full article for The Bulwark is available at this link.

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