Maryland Republican Party at critical juncture as election nears

Republican Larry Hogan is one of the most popular governors in Maryland’s recent history. After two terms, including a landslide victory in 2018, Hogan leaves office with a 62% approval rating according to a Sept. 19 Goucher College poll. By comparison, his gubernatorial predecessor had a 40% approval rating when he left office in 2014. But when Hogan asked his fellow Republicans to nominate Kelly Schulz, a candidate in his mold, to run for the state’s highest office, they instead chose Dan Cox, a 2020 election denier, a man who Hogan had already called a “QAnon wackjob,” a one-term House delegate who sent two busloads of people to Washington for former President Donald Trump’s Jan. 6 rally that resulted in a seditious riot.