Larry Hogan’s not as moderate on abortion as you might think he is
By Lucy Ritzmann
Today, voters in Maryland will head to the polls in a primary election that could have an outsized impact on which party controls the U.S. Senate for several years to come. It’s not an exaggeration to say that Marylanders and their ballots may well set the course of the next several decades of American politics – even though no one seems to be talking about it all that much.
Democratic voters will decide between David Trone, the congressman and millionaire owner of Total Wine & More, and Angela Alsobrooks, a former prosecutor who is now a county executive, to be their nominee for the state’s open U.S. Senate seat.
The race is already the most expensive in the state’s history, which is due in large part to the fact that Trone has been pumping millions of dollars of his own money into his campaign.
Whoever wins today’s primary will face off against Larry Hogan, the state’s former Republican Governor, who bills himself as a moderate. Despite the fact that Maryland is a deep blue state, Larry Hogan has earned high marks from Democrats and has also amassed a large online following. If Hogan does succeed again in November, it could mean that Republicans take control of the Senate.
Hogan’s entire persona and popularity can be attributed in large part to the fact that he claims to be a moderate – and on many issues, he may be.
But on one of the most important issues to voters this year – reproductive rights – he’s a moderate in name only.
When it comes to Hogan’s stance on abortion, he has played it a bit like a wolf in sheep’s clothing. He has stated that while he is “personally opposed” to abortion, he would not vote for a national abortion ban and would protect IVF, leading some voters to likely assume they can trust him to protect their freedoms on this issue.
But Hogan’s record demonstrates that this is not at all the case. In 2022, while Hogan was still Governor, he vetoed a bill that the Maryland General Assembly passed that would have expanded access to abortion and required insurance plans to cover the care without cost to the patient. While Hogan’s veto might not have seemed completely devastating in April 2022 when it occurred, it certainly did two months later when the Dobbs decision came down and overturned Roe v. Wade.
This wasn’t actually Hogan’s first attack on reproductive rights either. In 2020, Hogan specifically shut down all abortion procedures in the state, after categorizing them “elective” and claiming that they needed the beds for COVID-19 patients. Later in 2020, Hogan also campaigned in support of Republicans David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler during the Georgia 2020 run-offs. Both Perdue and Loeffler are aggressively anti-abortion.
And if Hogan does make it to the Senate in November, his presence there would have ramifications far beyond Maryland.
He has already stated that he would caucus with the GOP and vote for a conservative, MAGA majority leader, allowing votes on right-wing priorities and placing Republican extremists atop key Senate committees. This means he would also be voting for MAGA Federalist Society judges, giving more momentum to the anti-abortion movement. Regardless of his public assurances, Hogan could very well be the linchpin that allows the Senate GOP to restrict reproductive rights even more severely than they already have.
So today, Marylanders will decide who they think could take on this tough fight against Hogan and win. And while we are still just under six months away from Election Day, make no mistake: the battle for Senate majority – and the battle for the future of reproductive freedoms in this nation – starts now.
