Hogan Visits New Hampshire As Some Urge 2020 Challenge To Trump

ANNAPOLIS, MD — He still hasn't said no to a primary challenge of President Donald Trump in 2010, and now Republican Gov. Larry Hogan has scheduled a speech in early primary state New Hampshire. The moderate GOP businessman, who has an approval rating of nearly 70 percent, is being urged by some in his party to challenge Trump's re-election bid next year.

The latest move to fan the talk of a Hogan vs. Trump smackdown is word that the Maryland governor has accepted an invitation from the New Hampshire Institute of Politics to speak April 23 at the Politics & Eggs series at Saint Anselm College. Speaking at the Politics & Eggs series in the home of the first presidential primary is a must for potential presidential candidates, according to The Washington Post.

Most Marylanders don't support the notion of Hogan taking on the president. Goucher Poll findings released Feb. 19 show that only a third of the voters think that the second-term governor should run for president in 2020 and 55 percent do not.

"Gov. Hogan's re-election amid a blue wave, sustained positive job approval ratings across party lines, and his approach to politics have caught the attention of 'Never Trump' leaders looking for a challenger to President Trump in the Republican presidential primary," said Mileah Kromer, director of the Sarah T. Hughes Field Politics Center at Goucher College, in a news release.

"About a third of Maryland Republicans want to see a Hogan presidential run, which is consistent with recent national polling that suggests many national Republicans nationwide want a different nominee in 2020. Taken together, polling suggests that mounting a primary challenge would be difficult — unless, of course, the volatility of our current national politics dramatically alters the political playing field."

After President Trump's popularity took a hit from the chaotic partial government shutdown, GOP sources said that Hogan — the second-most popular governor in the United States — was newly open to the suggestion that he mount a primary bid for the Republican Party's presidential nomination in 2020.

Hogan was interviewed by CBS News last month and didn't dismiss running for president, but he was careful not to embrace the idea either. He noted that he had won re-election in November and just began his second term.

"I would say I'm being approached from a lot of different people and I guess the best way to put it is, I haven't thrown them out of my office," Hogan told CBS.

A February Goucher Poll also showed that Gov. Hogan's high approval with Marylanders remains unchanged. Sixty-nine percent of those polled approve of the job Hogan is doing as governor, 14 percent disapprove, and 14 percent say they don't know.

Never a supporter of President Trump's candidacy or policies, Hogan went so far as to write in his late father on the presidential ballot rather than voting for the controversial Trump. After a violent white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, left one woman dead and at least 19 people injured more than a year ago, Hogan condemned the gathering even as Trump said there were good people on both sides of the clashes.

When Hogan was asked by CBS if Trump is fit to be president he said, "I think there are times where he acts irrationally, and makes decisions and ... does things in a way that aren't great for the Republican Party, or for the country, or for him and his agenda, for that matter. I mean, I think sometimes he can be his own worst enemy."

Last summer Hogan downplayed talk of a presidential run. But a story in The New York Times in January 2019 says GOP detractors of the president are urging other Republicans to oppose his re-election efforts, and Hogan has indicated he is willing to listen to their pitch. GOP midterm losses in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin — state's key to Trump's 2016 victory — and Trump's erosion with political moderates and women has surfaced talk within his party that the Mueller investigation and failure to win full funding for his touted wall on the Mexico border make the president vulnerable. And that it might be time for other candidates to challenge Trump.

Democratic presidential contenders have begun trekking to frigid Iowa, which holds the first-in-the-nation caucuses. Hogan spent two days in the Midwestern state earlier this month in his role as an officer of the National Governors Association. The Times reports an Iowa-based strategist was asked to hold a dinner with Republicans who see Trump as vulnerable while Hogan was in the state.

Jerry Taylor, president of the Niskanen Center, told the newspaper Hogan had "made it clear that the door is open to a potential candidacy, but no decision has been made."

At an August 2018 business gathering, Hogan spoke with David Rubenstein, president of the Economic Club of Washington D.C., at the Bethesda Marriott. The governor noted that he is one of the country's most popular governors, and "you never say never."

"I have never really given that much thought," Hogan said of a run for president, according to The Washington Post.

But he didn't completely dismiss a presidential bid in 2020 or 2024. Arizona Sen. Jeff Flake and Ohio Gov. John Kasich, both Republicans, have also refused to rule out a possible 2020 presidential run, Politico says.

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