Larry Hogan, the Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate in Maryland, doesn’t plan to attend his party’s national convention this summer. But it’s not because top Donald Trump allies and Republican officials have fresh criticism for the former governor.
He never planned to go.
On primary election day in May, a top Hogan adviser told reporters that Hogan would be better served courting voters in Maryland than schmoozing with party officials in Wisconsin.
“The election is going to be decided here in Maryland. It’s not going to be decided in Milwaukee,” the senior adviser said.
The campaign confirmed to The Baltimore Banner on Tuesday that the plan remains for Hogan to skip the Republican National Convention. The convention is planned for July 15-18 and Trump is expected to accept the party’s nomination for president.
Hogan didn’t participate in either of the two national conventions when he was governor, the 2016 event in Cleveland and the 2020 event that was partially online. At both of those conventions, Trump was formally nominated as the party’s candidate for president, and Hogan did not support Trump either time.
Hogan said he voted for his father in 2016 and the late President Ronald Reagan in 2020, rather than for Trump.
Hogan continues to distance himself from Trump, to the ire of the former president’s allies and advisers.
Just ahead of the announcement of the jury verdict in Trump’s hush-money trial in New York last week, Hogan urged respect for the judicial system. That drew a warning from Trump campaign official Chris LaCivita: “You just ended your campaign.”
And Lara Trump, the ex-president’s daughter-in-law and co-chair of the Republican National Committee, said over the weekend that Hogan doesn’t deserve respect. She declined to say either way whether the party would lend financial support to Hogan’s campaign.
Hogan faces Democratic nominee Angela Alsobrooks, currently the Prince George’s County executive, in the general election. They’re vying to succeed longtime Sen. Ben Cardin, a Democrat who opted not run for reelection.
