Former Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan, a Republican, is pictured in 2022. He mentioned on Sunday that he won’t run for the White House in 2024, after lengthy positioning himself as a attainable various to the previous president.

John Locher/AP

disguise caption

toggle caption

John Locher/AP

Former Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan, a Republican, is pictured in 2022. He mentioned on Sunday that he won’t run for the White House in 2024, after lengthy positioning himself as a attainable various to the previous president.

John Locher/AP

ANNAPOLIS, Md. — Larry Hogan, the previous Republican governor of Maryland who positioned himself as certainly one of his celebration’s fiercest critics of Donald Trump, mentioned Sunday he won’t problem the ex-president for the GOP’s White House nomination in 2024.

“I would never run for president to sell books or position myself for a Cabinet role,” the 66-year-old Hogan wrote in The New York Times. “I have long said that I care more about ensuring a future for the Republican Party than securing my own future in the Republican Party. And that is why I will not be seeking the Republican nomination for president.”

The transfer is a recognition that whereas many within the GOP are contemplating methods to maneuver on from the Trump period, there may be little urge for food amongst major voters for such a vocal critic of the previous president. Other outstanding Trump adversaries, together with former Reps. Liz Cheney of Wyoming and Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, do not look like making strikes towards a marketing campaign in the intervening time.

For now, that leaves Trump because the main determine within the early discipline of Republican candidates.

So far, he faces simply three formal challengers: his former U.N. ambassador Nikki Haley, entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy and Michigan businessman Perry Johnson.

Others, together with former Vice President Mike Pence, ex-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott, might be a part of within the coming months. One attainable candidate, former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson, mentioned Sunday on CNN’s State of the Union that “March is a message month” and that Republicans “need to have all alternatives” to Trump. “We don’t need to be led by arrogance and revenge in the future.”

Some Trump rivals, equivalent to Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, might wait till late summer season to formally announce their campaigns.

In an interview with CBS’ Face The Nation, Hogan insisted the prospect of competing towards Trump did not issue into his determination.

“He’s very tough,” Hogan mentioned. “But, you know, I beat life-threatening cancer. So having Trump call me names on Twitter didn’t — didn’t really scare me off.”

“It’s mostly about the country and about the party,” Hogan added. “It was a personal decision. It was like, I didn’t need that job. I didn’t need to run for another office. It was really I was considering it because I thought it was public service and maybe I can make a difference.”

Hogan was a two-term Republican governor in closely blue Maryland

Hogan wrapped up his second time period as governor in January, serving for eight years in a state the place Democrats outnumber Republicans by a 2-to-1 margin. He was Maryland’s second Republican governor ever to be reelected.

Some Republicans had hoped that Hogan, rising as the brand new finest hope of a small group of “Never Trump Republicans,” would problem Trump in 2020. But a 12 months after Hogan’s reelection in 2018, he mentioned that whereas he appreciated “all of the encouragement” he had obtained to run for president, he wouldn’t. Hogan told The Associated Press he had little interest in a “kamikaze mission.”

In the previous two presidential elections, Hogan mentioned he didn’t vote for Trump, the celebration nominee. Hogan mentioned he wrote within the title of his father, former U.S. Rep. Larry Hogan Sr., in 2016 and the late President Ronald Reagan in 2020.

Hogan gained his first time period as governor in 2014 in an upset, utilizing public marketing campaign financing towards a better-funded candidate. Running on fiscal issues as a average Republican businessman, Hogan tapped into frustration from a wide range of tax and charge will increase over the eight earlier years to defeat then-Lt. Gov. Anthony Brown.

Hogan had by no means held elected workplace earlier than and in his first 12 months as governor, he centered on pocketbook points. He lowered tolls, an motion he might take with out approval from the General Assembly, lengthy managed by Democrats. But he was additionally introduced with challenges, together with unrest in Baltimore following the demise of Freddie Gray in police custody in 2015. Hogan despatched the National Guard to stop additional rioting.

In June of that 12 months, he was identified with stage 3 non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma however continued working whereas receiving therapy. He has been in remission since November 2015.

In 2018, he grew to become solely the second Republican governor within the historical past of the state to win reelection, defeating former NAACP President Ben Jealous.

Hogan has lengthy been upfront about his distaste for Trump as president.

In 2020, as chair of the National Governors Association, Hogan criticized Trump for delaying a nationwide coronavirus testing technique, saying the president was taking part in down the virus’ menace regardless of grave warnings from prime nationwide specialists.

“I did not go out of my way to criticize the president,” Hogan mentioned. “But unlike a lot of Republicans, I’m not the guy that’s just going to sit down and shut up and not stand up and say something if I think something’s going wrong.”

Describing the riot on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, as “one of the darkest days in American history,” Hogan mentioned Trump ought to have resigned or been faraway from workplace.

“The people that try to whitewash Jan. 6 as if nothing happened are delusional. It was an assault on democracy,” Hogan advised the AP late final 12 months.

Trump and Hogan have been engaged in a proxy battle of types within the 2022 election. Hogan’s decide to succeed him as governor was Kelly Schulz, who was labor secretary and commerce secretary in his administration. She misplaced within the Republican major to Trump-endorsed Dan Cox, a state lawmaker who mentioned President Joe Biden’s 2020 victory should not have been licensed and who sought to question Hogan for his pandemic insurance policies.

Cox went on to lose the November normal election by a big margin to Democrat Wes Moore.