By Adam Pagnucco.
Former Governor Larry Hogan was undoubtedly the strongest choice by the GOP to run against Democratic nominee Angela Alsobrooks for the U.S. Senate seat vacated by incumbent Ben Cardin. Republicans nationwide invested tens of millions of dollars to get Hogan elected. Hogan lost, but otherwise, how did he do? And what might that mean for his potential return to Annapolis?
One take on Hogan’s performance is the chart below, which has been circulated by Democratic strategist Jeremy Slevin on X. The chart compares the electoral performance of Democratic U.S. Senate candidates to Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris. Alsobrooks ran almost 8 points behind Harris, the worst in the country.
So if Alsobrooks did that badly, Hogan must have been a sensational candidate despite his loss. Right?
Well, let’s dig deeper.
The chart below compares Hogan’s percentage of the vote in 2024 to the percentages earned by other GOP Senate candidates in Maryland since 1986. Hogan’s percentage – 42.8% (shown in red) – is 8.0 points higher than the average of the 13 prior GOP Senate candidates (34.9%). It’s not the highest in the period, though. That prize belongs to former Lieutenant Governor Michael Steele, who received 44.2% of the vote in 2006 running against Cardin for an open seat.
Steele is an interesting contrast to Hogan. While Steele was lieutenant governor, he was not as well known in 2006 as Hogan is now. However, he was much more charismatic than Cardin, and as a Black Republican, he had a rare novelty. Both the 2006 and 2024 campaigns were financially competitive between the party nominees and control of the U.S. Senate was at stake. (Republicans lost their majority in 2006 and Democrats lost theirs this year.)
Still, Hogan’s eight-point premium over other GOP nominees is something he can brag about. How does that compare to his gubernatorial races? The chart below shows the percentage of the vote earned by GOP gubernatorial nominees in Maryland since 1986. Hogan’s percentages in 2014 and 2018 are shown in red.
In his two races, both wins, Hogan averaged 53.2% of the vote. His 2018 percentage – 55.4% – was the highest by a Republican for governor since Theodore McKeldin’s victory over a Democratic incumbent in 1950. Hogan’s average was 12.7 points higher than the other GOP nominees over the time period. If the abysmal 1986 performance of party-switching Takoma Park Delegate Thomas Mooney is removed from the average, Hogan’s average was 9.4% above the other Republicans.
So Hogan did noticeably better than the average Maryland Republican running for U.S. Senate and governor. But the GOP floor in these races is different. Since 1986, Republicans have received an average of 35.4% of the vote when running for Senate and 43.0% when running for governor. Over the period, the GOP recorded three wins in gubernatorial races (Hogan and his former boss, Bob Ehrlich, in 2002) and nearly won a fourth time (Delegate Ellen Sauerbrey in 1994). In contrast, the last time the GOP won a Maryland U.S. Senate seat was in 1980, when incumbent Charles Mathias was reelected to his last term (and won every county in doing so).
Overall, this year’s result seems to be less about Hogan and more about the nature of these elections. Marylanders are reluctant to vote for Republicans to statewide federal office but they are much more willing to give them a shot at the state level. Hogan is the ultimate example of this as he is the first two-term GOP governor since McKeldin in the 1950s and yet he couldn’t win a U.S. Senate seat. His federal run may have been unspectacular, but he ran better than anyone else in his party could have. Hogan should not be underestimated as a potential candidate for governor in the next election.