Free Republic

The top Republican leader in the Maryland Senate declined to endorse his party’s nominee for governor on Tuesday as Republicans continue to grapple with far-right conservative Dan Cox at the top of the ticket. Senate Minority Leader Bryan Simonaire, speaking about the need to break Democrats’ supermajority control in the Legislature, said he was solely focused on the candidates for state Senate and had no plans to endorse any of the statewide nominees.

Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan (R) said this week that the GOP nominee running to replace him is not “mentally stable.” “He’s not, in my opinion, mentally stable,” Hogan said of candidate Dan Cox while doing an interview on WGMD radio, according to The Washington Post.

Dan Cox, the Republican candidate for governor of Maryland, promised to empower the state police and Maryland Guard to “stand against all rogue actions of this out of control tyrannical Biden administration” if elected. [SNIP] “As governor, I will use the 9th and 10th amendments, the Maryland Constitution and Declaration of Rights, the MSP and Maryland Guard to stand against all rogue actions of this out of control tyrannical Biden administration with fierce tenacity,” the email read. “Our children, families and loved ones and the freedom we cherish and is our birthright as Americans demand we oppose these criminal acts...

A political strategist known for helping a Tea Party challenger unseat former House Majority Leader Eric Cantor will manage the gubernatorial campaign of Republican Dan Cox. Cox announced Friday that Zach Werrell will serve as his campaign manager, touting his “extensive statewide campaign experience with national contacts.” Werrell managed the 2014 congressional primary election campaign of Republican Dave Brat of Virginia, who ousted Cantor in a stunning upset. Cox faces Democrat Wes Moore in Maryland’s November election. Werrell, who grew up in Southern Maryland, is co-author of “How to Bag a RINO: The Whiz Kids Who Brought Down House Majority...

Maryland’s Larry Hogan is a conservative non-MAGA Republican governor in a blue state who has received a lot of Democratic votes — especially in the 2018 midterms, when he ran for reelection and defeated Democratic nominee Ben Jealous by 12 percent. 2018 was generally a good year for Democrats, who enjoyed a major blue wave in the U.S. House of Representatives that year. Yet Republican Hogan enjoyed a double-digit reelection victory in a blue state.Because Maryland has gubernatorial term limits, Hogan cannot seek a third term — and in Maryland’s 2022 Republican gubernatorial primary, he endorsed former Maryland Commerce Secretary...

WASHINGTON (AP) — Dan Cox wins Republican nomination for governor in Maryland primary election.

Former President Donald Trump and Maryland Governor Larry Hogan have put their support behind various Republican candidates to be the state’s next governor, with polls suggesting a potentially close primary race. Anti-Trump Republican Hogan, who has served as Maryland’s governor since 2015, has urged GOP voters in his state to support his former commerce secretary, Kelly Schultz. Governors, who have readily criticized the former president, have a limited term and cannot seek re-election. Meanwhile, Trump has endorsed Dan Cox, a member of Maryland’s House of Delegates, who first took office in 2019. With Maryland’s primary set for Tuesday, recent polling...

Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan (R) said in an interview published on Tuesday that “more and more” people are telling him he should run for president, comments that come while he visits early presidential primary state New Hampshire this week. “More and more people are encouraging me to consider it,” Hogan told CBS News in a phone interview. “There’s a diminishing number of folks that are wanting the former president, Trump, to run. There’s a growing number of people that are looking for our kind of successful, bigger-tent politics (ME),” he added.

During and after his tenure in the White House, there was no love lost between Donald Trump and Maryland’s Republican Gov. Larry Hogan, who was and remains among the former president’s most outspoken critics from within the Republican Party. With Hogan term-limited and reportedly pondering a run for the presidency himself, that enmity has carried over into Maryland’s July 19 GOP gubernatorial primary to select the party’s candidate to succeed the popular governor—a Republican twice-elected to lead a Democrat-dominated state. There are four candidates on the Republican gubernatorial ballot, but the contest boils down to a two-way battle between Hogan-backed...

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."

Kelly M. Schulz accused a Democratic group of backing a Republican “fringe candidate” endorsed by former president Donald Trump in the tight GOP primary, a move that could improve a Democrat’s chances of winning the general election....... “The math is easy. Spend a million now and save $5 million by not having to face me in the general election,” Schulz said in Annapolis on Thursday, flanked by supporters, including Hogan. She called Cox a “lying, conspiracy theorist … who is a danger to our party and our state.” The allegation yielded a swift response from Trump, who has meddled in...

Some of them, anyway. Donald Trump has endorsed candidates in 15 Senate contests to date, according to Politico. Many of them are incumbent Senators. They are expected to cruise to renomination by the GOP. But, says Politico, some of the others are struggling. Politico cites Mo Brooks in Alabama, Kelly Tshibaka in Alaska, Ted Budd in North Carolina, and Sean Parnell in Pennsylvania (Parnell recently withdrew from the race due to allegations of spousal abuse). Trump hasn’t endorsed Blake Masters, but did appear at a Mar-a-Logo fundraiser for the Arizona Republican. Masters is also struggling, according to Politico. I don’t...