By Teresa Woorman, Vice President of the Montgomery County Young Democrats

I have to laugh when people act like former Governor Larry Hogan is a “moderate” who deserves a “Profile in Courage” award for saying that he won’t vote for Donald Trump in the 2024 general election or would oppose a national law banning abortion if elected to the U.S. Senate.

I don’t see the courage in a candidate for statewide office in Maryland saying he’s not going to vote for a presidential candidate who lost the state in 2016 by 26 percentage points and lost in 2020 by more than 33 percentage points.

However, Governor Hogan’s lack of political courage went a step further in both elections because – just like in 2016 and 2020- he still refused to vote for the only alternative candidate with a chance to beat Trump – the Democratic nominee.  (Hogan clearly knows that voting for a non-Democrat can help Trump, because he declined to run on the “No Labels” ticket, saying, (“I just didn’t want to be a spoiler, and I didn’t know if you could really get to 270 [electoral votes].”) 

Instead of voting to protect our democracy by voting for someone who actually could defeat Donald Trump, count on Hogan to cast a write-in vote for another Republican (dead or alive) with no chance of becoming President, essentially making a PR move while abstaining from voting in the most important election of our lifetimes.   In 2016, he said he voted for his father, Larry Hogan, Sr. (then 88 years old – he passed away in 2017).  In 2020, after four years of Trump as President, he said he voted for former President Ronald Reagan, who died 16 years earlier in 2004.  If he had voted for Mickey Mouse, it would have had the same effect on the result.

Now, in 2024, he says he won’t vote for either Trump or President Joe Biden. Really? While I appreciate that Governor Hogan has expressed some anti-Trump views, that seems pretty basic in a state like ours.  But you have to wonder what he is thinking when, knowing what he knows about Trump – now including Trump’s actions on January 6, 2021 and his promise to pardon those convicted of crimes on that sad day – he still won’t take a position between the only two choices with a chance to win the Presidency. 

On abortion, of course, Hogan would vote against a national abortion ban that 2/3 of Marylanders would oppose.  But there won’t be a vote on a national abortion ban if Democrats control the U.S. Senate.  After being recruited by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to run for the Senate seat, Hogan owes the Republican Party a vote for control of the U.S. Senate, the only vote they need from him to enact a national abortion ban relying on other Senators’ votes.  Hogan won’t even commit to support legislation codifying Roe v. Wade.  That doesn’t sound “moderate” or “courageous” – but it sounds like a conservative trying to hide his views on issues voters care about. 

No, thanks — I plan to vote for a Democrat who won’t equivocate on reproductive rights, which party should control the U.S. Senate, or who should be the President of the United States.