Former Republican Gov. Larry Hogan, a fierce critic of Donald Trump, said Sunday he will not run for the White House in 2024, according to the Associated Press.
Hogan, 66, wrote in The New York Times that while he appreciated “all those around the nation who have for many years encouraged me to run for president, after eight years of pouring my heart and soul into serving the people of Maryland, I have no desire to put my family through another grueling campaign just for the experience.”
Hogan wrapped up his second term in January, serving eight years in a state where Democrats outnumber Republicans by a 2-to-1 margin.
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He was Maryland’s second Republican governor ever to be reelected.
Some Republicans had hoped that Hogan, emerging as the new best hope of a small group of “Never Trump Republicans,” would challenge Trump in 2020. But a year after Hogan’s reelection in 2018, he said that while he appreciated “all of the encouragement” he had received to run for president, he would not.
Hogan told The Associated Press he had no interest in a “kamikaze mission.”
Hogan has acknowledged he would be an underdog in the 2024 GOP presidential primary. But he also noted that he had been considered a long shot to become governor in a heavily Democratic state.
“Is there a path, and is it worth the effort, and can I make a difference?” he said in an AP interview in December, recalling his thought process on whether to run for governor. “And those are the kinds of questions I’ll have to try to answer.”
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In a statement Sunday, Republican Presidential Candidate Steve Laffey said, “Larry Hogan is a great man and an outstanding Governor. I have always had the utmost respect in Governor Hogan’s acumen as a businessman and was very impressed by everything he accomplished while in office in Maryland. While I completely respect his decision, I know he would have challenged all of us along the campaign trail.”
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