Incumbent Republican congressmen are retiring in droves amid frustration with their dysfunctional House majority. Three of the most prominent bipartisan dealmakers in the Senate—Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, Joe Manchin of West Virginia, and Mitt Romney of Utah—decided to head for the exits rather than be purged in their respective primary elections or face likely defeat in November. 

Against this backdrop, why on earth did Larry Hogan, the moderate Republican former governor of Maryland, decide to run for the United States Senate in 2024? 

“It’s funny,” Hogan told The Dispatch last week while sitting on a bench outside a florist shop after a full day campaigning at small businesses. “My close friends actually said, ‘I had no idea you were going to run for the Senate.’ And I said, ‘Yeah, I had no idea either.’ It literally was a last minute kind of reversal of position. I had been saying for more than two years that I wasn’t interested.”