Trump, Hogan trade fire in Maryland GOP gubernatorial primary

With one week to go until primary day in Maryland, former President Donald Trump and Gov. Larry Hogan are taking aim at each other in the GOP gubernatorial nomination race to succeed the term-limited Republican governor.

Trump, who last year endorsed state Delegate Dan Cox, claimed in a statement on Tuesday that Cox “is doing a great job running for Governor of Maryland.” 

And the former president argued that “Dan will end Larry Hogan’s terrible RINO reign by defeating his “Never Trump” successor, another low-energy RINO, Kelly Schulz.”

Hogan’s backing Schulz – a former state lawmaker who served as Maryland’s secretary of labor (2015-2019) and secretary of commerce (2019–2022) in the governor’s administration.

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Cox and Schulz are the two clear front-runners in the most recent polling of the four-candidate GOP field ahead of the July 19 primary. Nine Democrats are running in a jam-packed primary for their party’s nomination in the blue state of Maryland.

Hogan, in a Fox News interview, charged that Cox is a “crazy guy” who has “no business whatsoever running for governor and has no ability to win a race.”

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The Democratic Governors Association seems to agree with Hogan.

The DGA, the top organization helping Democratic candidates in gubernatorial races, is spending seven figures to run ads boosting Cox ahead of the primary. Democrats view Cox, a conservative lawmaker who supports Trump’s repeated unproven claims that his 2020 election loss to now President Biden was due to “massive voter fraud,” as a weaker candidate than Schulz in November’s general election

“The Democratic Governors Association decided to spend nearly $1 million to help Dan Cox. They’re only doing this and meddling in our primary because they know that I am the only Republican who can win in November,” Schulz said recently.

Hogan also took aim at the DGA, charging, “Here we have Democrats focused on talking every day about the threats to democracy. Meanwhile, they’re investing tens of millions of dollars into promoting conspiracy theory.”

“The Democrats are spending a lot of money trying to nominate the least electable people and they’re having some success, but you know, we call them out,” he added.

And Hogan, a vocal Republican critic of the former president, argued that “Trump is supporting this crazy guy and the Democrats are colluding with it.”

But Trump, in his statement, claimed that Cox “will do an amazing job restoring FREEDOM to a shutdown Maryland.” And the former president charged that “Hogan is one of the worst in the Country, governed more like a Democrat than a Republican.”

Hogan, asked by Fox News if the gubernatorial primary was turning into a proxy war with Trump, disagreed, saying that “each race really comes down to the candidates themselves.”

But he added, “I’m doing everything I can to elect people that I believe would do a good job and that have the best chance to win in November, and I’m doing that not just in Maryland, but all across the country.”