The Maryland Senate race is shaping up to be a lot about Republicans who aren’t named Larry Hogan.
The pitch from Democrats in the deep-blue state centers on the notion that a vote for GOP nominee Hogan, the former two-term centrist governor, is a vote to empower other Republicans like Sens. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC) with the majority.
“The last I checked, neither Lindsey nor I are running in Maryland,” Cruz told the Washington Examiner. “It sounds like Maryland Democrats are really scared of Larry Hogan, so they’re trying to find someone else to attack instead.”
Graham said he “thought there would be better targets than me.”
Hogan’s eleventh-hour entry into the race earlier this year to fill the seat of retiring Sen. Ben Cardin (D-MD) was a worst-case scenario for Democrats, turning what would otherwise be a shoo-in for the party into a competitive contest against a popular statewide Republican. Hogan’s Democratic opponent is Prince George’s County Executive Angela Alsobrooks.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), who recruited Hogan to run, is a natural punching bag in battleground Senate races across the country, including Maryland. But up against an anti-Trump Republican like Hogan, who’s distanced himself from the national party, Maryland Democrats and Alsobrooks surrogates have consistently name-dropped more polarizing GOP figures to motivate the base.
“Regardless of his opinions from the back row, Hogan would put extremist Republicans like Mitch McConnell, Ted Cruz, and Lindsey Graham in charge of the U.S. Senate,” Maryland state Sen. Cheryl Kagan, a Democrat, said in a recent statement.
“Very simple political math,” Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) told reporters last week, “tells you that a vote for Larry Hogan is a vote to put Mitch McConnell and Ted Cruz and the ‘MAGA’ Republicans in charge of the United States Senate.”
Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO), a leading proponent of overturning the 2020 election results, has at times also been lobbed into the mix.
“The people of Maryland are going to be electing a U.S. senator who’s either going to be voting to put the Democrats in control of the agenda, or they can be voting to put Ted Cruz or Josh Hawley,” Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) recently told reporters.
Hawley told the Washington Examiner he was “very flattered they would think of me.”
Alsobrooks, for her part, has largely stuck to equating Hogan with McConnell and former President Donald Trump. As part of a more recent shift in strategy, her surrogates have painted Hogan as a phony “Never Trumper.” Alsobrooks is favored to win, but while an upset by Hogan would ensure the chamber flips red, it’d also likely mean the GOP swept several other battleground races leaning more in their favor.
“Larry Hogan hopes you all believe that he’s running for governor again,” Alsobrooks told supporters at a campaign stop last month. “We shouldn’t let him anywhere near the Senate to give the majority to a party that is led by Donald Trump, and there’s no way for him to distance himself from those people because Mitch McConnell is the person who selected him.”
Cruz, Graham, and other prominent Republicans are plastered throughout the Hogan opposition website launched by the Maryland Democratic Party. It warns that Graham, the top Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, and Cruz, the top Republican on Senate Commerce, could become the chairmen of the respective panels if Hogan is elected.
Graham chalked up the campaign rhetoric invoking him as “just politics,” potentially connected to his vehement defense of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh during the contentious confirmation process in 2018 that was temporarily upended by decades-old sexual assault allegations against the judge.
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Graham offered a minor correction to Democrats and quipped that his experiences in Maryland have been pleasant.
“Number one, I wouldn’t be chairman of Judiciary. I’d be chairman of Budget,” Graham said. “I’ve been to Maryland a bunch. Nobody’s come up and hit me or anything. Seems like a really nice place.”
