This makes three Senate races this fall in which the GOP won’t be fielding its strongest possible candidate, almost certainly because moderate Republicans don’t want to come to Washington knowing they’ll have to operate under Trump’s thumb. Or potentially have to contend with a Trump-backed primary challenge before they’ve even won their seat.
Doug Ducey was the first to say no, calculating that if he ran he’d get the same treatment Brian Kemp is getting from Trump right now in Georgia in the form of David Perdue. Then Chris Sununu passed on running in New Hampshire, opting to try for another term as governor instead — and potentially facing a primary opponent endorsed by Trump in that race too. Today Larry Hogan broke the news that he won’t be challenging Chris Van Hollen for Senate even though he’s Maryland’s answer to Joe Manchin, the only member of his party in the entire state who could conceivably win that seat.
My guess is that, as painful as this news is to Mitch McConnell, it’ll be delightful to Trump. McConnell will see Hogan’s decision as a setback for the party, and rightly so. Trump will see it as a victory for him personally since Hogan is a longtime critic. There’s no question that he’d rather have his Republican enemies punished even if it means costing his party power than see the GOP expand its majority if it means seeing his enemies win office. It’s the same illogic that once led him to half-jokingly endorse Stacey Abrams over Kemp and has now led him to very seriously endorse Perdue even though a divided Republican Party will make things easier for Abrams and Democrats in Georgia.
I want to let you know I will not be a candidate for the U.S. Senate. When I pledged to the people of Maryland that I was going to give this job everything I’ve got every single day that I’m given, I meant it—that commitment is more important to me than any political campaign. pic.twitter.com/M7J0AVCyfV
— Governor Larry Hogan (@GovLarryHogan) February 8, 2022
Hogan didn’t say the “T” word there but then neither did Sununu when he opted out of running for Senate, attributing his decision to the prospect of dealing with gridlock and obstructionism in Washington instead. But one way or another, Hogan is surely thinking about Trump. He has his eye on challenging him in the 2024 presidential primary, which may have led him to conclude that he’s better off serving out his last year as governor and then devoting his full energy to that. No sense in throwing himself into a very tough Senate race only to have to catch his breath and turn right around to begin mounting a presidential campaign.
But even if he doesn’t intend to challenge Trump (and why would he?), he might understandably foresee a Senate run in Trump’s shadow as not being worth the aggravation. Beating a Democratic incumbent like Van Hollen in a state as blue as Maryland would be a tall order even for a Republican as moderate, well-liked, and well-known as Hogan. But it’s doable in a national environment that should heavily favor the GOP. What’s probably not doable is winning a Republican Senate primary knowing that Trump is destined to support some completely unelectable MAGA populist who can turn out enough of the base to beat Hogan in the primary before getting obliterated in the general.
Like I say, Trump would be fine with that outcome. Spiting Hogan is surely worth more to him than the GOP widening its Senate margins even though there’s a solid chance Trump himself will be president again in 2025 and would benefit from having a squishy Republican like Hogan in Maryland’s Senate seat instead of Van Hollen. His approach to Hogan and Ducey (and to a lesser extent Sununu) is a matter of cutting off his nose to spite his face. But that’s okay: So long as he’s in charge and surrounded by cronies, I’m sure he prefers a smaller, Trumpier party to a larger, more heterodox one. He doesn’t serve the GOP, the GOP serves him.
Just look at how he’s spending the run-up to the midterms:
He has already singled out 10 House Republicans for extinction. He is attacking GOP governors and backing their primary challengers, while meddling in Senate races where it may lead to the nomination of flawed candidates who are ill-suited for a general election. He is fomenting a rebellion against the party’s Senate leader, Mitch McConnell. And this week, in Salt Lake City, it was David Bossie, the former Trump deputy campaign manager, who was leading the effort to kick Cheney and Kinzinger to the curb.
“Some of us who have been around for a while don’t think this makes any sense,” said Bill Palatucci, a Republican National Committee member from New Jersey. “We’ve got Biden in free fall, [Democrats] can’t get anything done in Washington, and for us to convene a circular firing squad, that make no sense to me.”…
Privately, Palatucci said several RNC members discussed frustration with the party’s agreement to pay as much as $1.6 million to help cover Trump’s personal legal fees related to his business dealings, the Washington Post previously reported.
“Privately, there’s a lot of consternation among members,” Palatucci said. “Almost all of us this year have key races, either for the statehouse or for House or Senate — $1.6 million would go a long way in a bunch of states.”
There’s no better example of the GOP serving Trump rather than vice versa than the RNC wasting committee money to pay the legal bills of a supposed billionaire, one whose PACs currently have $122 million in cash on hand. The GOP lost both houses of Congress and the presidency by hitching itself to Trump and now it’s going to lose otherwise winnable races this fall because top-quality Republicans talent is being spooked out of running by his vindictiveness. We get the party we deserve.
Here’s a new ad from Hogan’s PAC that sounds 2024-ish. What he hopes to achieve by running for president, I just don’t know.
