Republican Senate nominee Larry Hogan’s pivot on abortion landed with a thunderclap in Maryland this week, with Democrats incredulous, Republican leaders largely indifferent and some voters warily embracing him anew.
The former two-term governor noted the conservative wing of the Republican Party had been calling him a RINO — Republican In Name Only — about his abortion position for years. Hogan, who embraced populist views over party orthodoxy, has long had tension with conservatives but also cross-party appeal in the deep-blue state — an asset he is counting on as he faces the Democratic nominee, Prince George’s County Executive Angela D. Alsobrooks.
“You know, you can’t please everybody,” he said.
Two days after winning a primary where he had declined to stake out a position that far to the left, Hogan said Thursday he supported reinstating federal abortion protections promised under Roe v. Wade. Maryland’s reliably blue Senate seat is critical to Democrats seeking to retain control of the chamber, and Hogan’s candidacy threw that into uncertainty.
In further explaining his views Friday, he said that despite being raised Catholic and personally against the procedure, he’s long been unwilling to make choices for other people and the broader legal landscape has shifted.
“The times have changed,” Hogan told reporters Friday afternoon. “Look, things have changed over the last couple of decades and over the last year or two.”
Democratic leaders scoffed at Hogan, who as governor in 2022 vetoed legislation to expand abortion access, and described his new viewpoint as nothing more than a calculated political ploy.
“When somebody has a lifetime of being antiabortion and then somebody listens to their pollster and listens to their consultants and changes their position two days after a primary, I think people say, ‘Come on, man.’ It’s just not believable,” Maryland Democratic Party Chair Ken Ulman said in an interview.
“It doesn’t pass the smell test. And Maryland voters are really savvy,” Ulman said.
Some voters said Friday they were encouraged by Hogan’s new abortion stance, while some others were indifferent.
Mike Reilly, 62, of Stevensville, said he favored Alsobrooks’s primary opponent, Rep. David Trone (D-Md.). But Reilly said he might vote for Hogan in November if Hogan sticks to his new “pro-choice” position on abortion.
“I just want him to be very clear and not change his mind again,” Reilly said. If Hogan did go back to an antiabortion position, Reilly said he would likely vote for Alsobrooks.
“If he switched on that, what else is he going to switch on?” asked Joyce George, 77, a Republican who didn’t vote for Hogan in the primary.
George, of Pasadena, said she is antiabortion and the issue is important to her. Still, she said, she would likely vote for Hogan in November.
Hogan told reporters the stance isn’t new, more a clarification.
“After the overturning of Roe, it really put us in a bad position, where we were having some crazy, unreasonable things taking place,” Hogan said, pointing to the Alabama Supreme Court ruling that put in vitro fertility treatments at risk and Arizona facing the prospect of reinstating a Civil War-era abortion ban.
“We don’t want to go back to 1864,” he said.
Hogan dismissed Democratic outrage as the “same kind of tired attacks” he heard before, and used the moment to reinforce one of his core campaign lines: The reaction shows how partisan politics are broken and that’s why he’s running for Senate.
Maryland Republican leaders also downplayed the relative importance of abortion to their base, saying GOP voters here care far more about the cost of groceries, getting priced out of the housing market or stopping the flow of fentanyl fueling the overdose epidemic.
The Maryland Republican Party does not have a specific abortion policy in its platform, party leaders said.
The party’s current leadership declined to comment on Hogan’s position. But a former Maryland Republican Party chair who was in the seat when Hogan held office said the onetime governor can still build a coalition of Republicans, independents and crossover Democrats.
“I don’t think it really will have a significant impact,” Dirk Haire said Friday.
“It’s important that he communicate that he’s not going to be an extremist on the issue either way,” Haire said, noting Hogan’s support of Roe protections lines up with most of the general public’s views.
“It’s why he’s very popular. Because he’s going to try and find the common ground where most Marylanders can agree on things,” Haire said.
Neil C. Parrott, the newly minted Republican nominee for Maryland’s 6th Congressional District, the state’s most competitive, called abortion a “scarecrow-type issue” that Democrats have seized on “to inflame their base.”
“It will never happen,” Parrott said of reinstating Roe protections, which he doesn’t support but points out neither party has the votes to do anything on abortion. For Maryland, he said, nothing will change.
“When we’re talking federal office, running for U.S. Congress, it’s a nonissue,” Parrott said. “And people who bring it up are just trying to scare people into voting for them when it’s not anything. Both sides know this is not going to be changed in the U.S. Congress, not in the foreseeable future.”
Ashton Trochimowicz, 37, a registered Republican and Donald Trump supporter, said she will vote for Hogan in November despite his change on abortion.
“There are more important things to me than abortion,” she said outside of a supermarket in Lake Shore, Md.
“What I just paid for groceries is insane. My health insurance is insane,” said Trochimowicz, who has two young boys. “Abortion is not on my radar.”
But the issue is front and center for Maryland Democratic politicians, who telegraphed from the day Hogan jumped in the race they planned to focus on women’s reproductive rights. His pivot didn’t change that.
Alsobrooks said during a radio appearance Friday that Hogan’s views don’t match up with his record.
“What he is saying now in an election year is markedly different than what he is done,” she said on “The Politics Hour” on WAMU.
Hogan dismissed the criticisms.
“I think the people of Maryland know me pretty well, and they trust when I give them my word, as I did when I first ran for governor and as I’m doing again, that I mean what I say,” Hogan said. “My opponent or the head of the Democratic Party can attack me, but I’m just going to keep telling the truth, and we’ll see if voters believe me or not.”
