by Michael Mistroff
Baltimore Watchdog Staff Writer
Gov. Larry Hogan admitted Friday that he cast a write-in vote for former GOP President Ronald Reagan in the upcoming presidential election.
“I know it’s simply symbolic,” the Republican governor told The Washington Post. “It’s not going to change the outcome in my state. But I thought it was important to just cast a vote that showed the kind of person I’d like to see in office.”
Hogan said he rejected both President Donald Trump and Democrat Joe Biden. He explained that Reagan was his “hero in politics” and the presidential candidate that he idolized when he was a college student.
Reagan began implementing sweeping new political and economic initiatives soon after taking office. His so-called supply-side economics policies, dubbed “Reaganomics,” were highly popular among conservatives but denounced by liberals.
Hogan has said that he is open to considering a run for the White House in 2024. But Richard Vatz, a professor of Rhetoric and Communication at Towson University, and an expert in political persuasion, said Hogan’s decision to break with the GOP could hurt his chances for a nomination. He described the governor as “insufficiently devious to run for president.”
“I’m a lifelong conservative Republican,” Hogan said. “Reagan was the guy. I marched around as a college kid on the floor of the convention with a Reagan hat and a Reagan sign.”
John McTague, an associate professor of Political Science at Towson, said Hogan is trying to position himself as an “alternative” to Trump in a way that would help him maintain his support in the blue state of Maryland and avoid any possible association with the unpopular president in hope for a 2024 run.
“He has never been a Trump supporter, so it makes sense that he would not commit to voting for the president’s reelection,” McTague said. “Given the president’s weak standing in the polls, and relatively low likelihood of winning, Hogan is placing a strategic bet that he can represent a different kind of future for his party.”
Earlier this year, Hogan criticized Trump, saying the nation’s leader did not take the coronavirus pandemic seriously enough.
Trump also has clashed with Hogan, criticizing the governor’s acquisition of 500,000 coronavirus tests from South Korea.
“I don’t think he needed to go to South Korea,” Trump said. “I think he needed to get a little knowledge — would have been helpful.”
In addition, Trump was frustrated with Hogan for not utilizing the state’s labs. Officials had acknowledged that the labs did not have enough tests to safely move towards reopening the state.
“The administration made it clear over and over again they want the states to take the lead, and we have to go out and do it ourselves, and so that’s exactly what we did,” Hogan said.
Vatz said, “I can well understand those who find President Trump too personally offensive for whom to vote. I think it may make the governor not nominable for president, but it won’t hurt him for any office statewide, should he be interested.”