The Republican race for Maryland governor in Tuesday’s primary election pits a candidate backed by outgoing Gov. Larry Hogan against a rival endorsed by Donald Trump.
It’s an early showdown on Hogan’s home turf as he weighs a 2024 White House bid, potentially against the former president.
And it also may be the next closely watched bellwether for how an expected red-wave election may be impacting voters in the mid-Atlantic region, where recent high-profile races in Virginia and Pennsylvania have produced unexpected results from winning candidates who neither embraced nor repudiated the former president.
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On the Democratic side, the crowded candidate field includes the former head of the national Democratic Party, a bestselling author, the current state comptroller and a former U.S. education secretary.
U.S. Sen. Chris Van Hollen is facing a primary challenge as he seeks a second term following a stroke. In the U.S. House, Maryland has one open seat after the incumbent decided to seek a different office.
GOVERNOR
Hogan is a rare two-term Republican governor in a state where Democrats outnumber Republicans 2-1.
However, in keeping with other GOP governors in mid-Atlantic and northeastern states, his party identity has been the subject of much dispute among conservatives, who accuse Hogan of being a RINO.
With Republicans widely projected to win big in November, the rift between centrist/Establishment candidates and Trump’s pro-MAGA selections has been the defining threat of many primary races, and Tuesday will be no exception.
In Pennsylvania, the party advanced state Sen. Doug Mastriano, an outspoken critic of the 2020 vote fraud, to take on the incumbent attorney general, which was seen as a big win for Trump but a gamble for the state GOP, where conventional wisdom favors more moderate Republicans.
Last year’s success in Virginia, suggests that a strong GOP candidate, like new Gov. Glenn Youngkin, could buck the recent trends that have turned the region around the nation’s capitol deep blue by forging a new path, separate from Trump but without being cowed by the Left’s powerful machine politics.
In Maryland, Kelly Schulz is running as Hogan’s hand-picked successor to carry on his legacy. Schulz served as a labor secretary in Hogan’s administration and later as the head of the state’s commerce department. She is a former state legislator from Frederick County.
Schulz, the only woman in the field, would be Maryland’s first female governor if she were to win in November. She contends she is the only Republican in the primary who could tap into Hogan’s unusual political success in a heavily Democratic state.
She is running against Dan Cox, a state legislator who has been endorsed by Trump. Early in the pandemic, Cox sued over Hogan’s stay-at-home orders and regulations, saying they were unconstitutional. The lawsuit was later dismissed by a leftist judge, who said that Hogan had a duty as governor to protect public health.
Cox also filed a resolution of impeachment against Hogan, accusing him of violating the rights of residents by issuing orders that were “restrictive and protracted” during the pandemic. Fellow state lawmakers rejected the effort.
He helped organize busloads of protesters to go to Washington for the “Stop the Steal” rally that preceded the Jan. 6 U.S. Capitol uprising but has said he didn’t march to the Capitol afterward, and he condemned the violence.
Democrats, meanwhile, are throwing everything they’ve got in a bid to win back the governor’s office.
The Democratic primaryis shaping up as a competitive three-way race among former U.S. Labor Secretary Tom Perez, who previously served as chair of the Democratic National Committee; author Wes Moore, who held a virtual fundraiser with Oprah Winfrey; and state Comptroller Peter Franchot, who had wide margins of victory in his four terms as state tax collector.
U.S. SENATE
Sen. Chris Van Hollen, a Democrat, is seeking his second term. He first won election to the chamber in 2016, replacing retiring Sen. Barbara Mikulski, who was then the longest-serving woman in congressional history.
Van Hollen suffered a minor stroke in May but said doctors had told him there would be no long-term effects or damage. He said he experienced lightheadedness and acute neck pain while delivering a speech and sought medical care once he returned home.
Van Hollen has just one challenger in his Democratic primary: Michelle Smith, a Freedom of Information Act policy analyst with the U.S. Agency for International Development. Van Hollen previously served seven terms in the U.S. House.
Ten Republicans are seeking the GOP nomination, including perennial candidate Chris Chaffee, the owner of a contracting business who ran unsuccessfully against U.S. Rep. Steny Hoyer in 2014 and was runner-up in the GOP Senate primaries in 2016 and 2018.
The field features an impressive array of diversity, including black, Latino and female candidates, but relatively few with any high-profile experience serving in public office.
Van Hollen, who is expected to win his primary, would be a strong favorite in November. Maryland has not had a Republican U.S. senator in the last 35 years.
U.S. HOUSE
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The state has eight congressional districts but only one open seat this cycle.
Democratic Rep. Anthony Brown, who has represented Maryland’s 4th Congressional District, is stepping down after three terms to run for attorney general. Former Rep. Donna Edwards, who held the seat from 2008 to 2017, is running to get her job back representing the black-majority district in the suburbs of the nation’s capital. She will face former county prosecutor Glenn Ivey.
Even so, the recent round of redistricting and the other political circumstances may make some races closer than anticipated. Currently Maryland’s only Republican in the U.S. Congress is Rep. Andrew Harris, who is running unopposed for the GOP but has two Democratic challengers vying for the nomination to make it a blue sweep.
Both Democrat and Republican challengers, meanwhile, are lining up to see if they can pick off prominent incumbents like Hoyer, the House majority leader, or Jan. 6 committee member Jamie Raskin.
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