Former Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan has announced that he would be running for the U.S. Senate in a state that has not had a Republican senator in 37 years.
“My fellow Marylanders: you know me,” Hogan begins in a video released by his Senate campaign. “For eight years, we proved that the toxic politics that divide our nation need not divide our state.”
The former governor added that he decided to run for Senate “not to serve one party, but to try to be part of the solution: to fix our nation’s broken politics and fight for Maryland.”
“That is what I did as your governor and it’s exactly how I’ll serve you in the United States Senate,” Hogan said.
The former two-term governor who left office early last year will be running for an open seat due to the retirement of Sen. Ben Cardin.
Hogan was only the second Republican governor to ever win reelection in Maryland, a state where Democrats outnumber Republicans 2-1.
Hogan, a vocal critic of Trump had endorsed former United Nations ambassador and South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley for the Republican nomination for president.
The open Maryland senate seat has also gotten the attention of U.S. Rep. David Trone into the Democratic primary, as well as Angela Alsobrooks, the county executive of Prince George’s County in the suburbs of the nation’s capital.
Trone has poured $23 million of his own money into his campaign so far.
