Maryland governor Larry Hogan shows what a post-Trump, more moderate GOP could look like

Hogan’s credentials as a lifelong Republican are sound. His father and namesake was a Republican Congressman in the ‘60s and ‘70s, and Hogan consistently has acted in that older tradition of Republicanism. He’s an economic conservative but no culture warrior. Throughout his two terms in office, he has clashed with Democrats over his conservative positions on fiscal policy, transportation, school choice and criminal justice issues, but has also cooperated with them to stabilize healthcare premiums, pass sensible gun control laws and, most recently, respond to COVID-19.

The result of this combative bipartisanship is a state government that, for the most part, functions effectively. Indeed, Marylanders have consistently viewed the state as heading in the right direction since Hogan took office, and he enjoys some of the highest approval ratings of any elected official in the country.

Hogan’s un-Trump-like approach to governing (particularly during the present crisis), combined with his willingness to stand up to a Republican president, means that many political observers see him as making an implicit case for a post-Trump party. In contrast with Trump’s chaotic and antagonistic populism, Hogan embodies a Republican Party that embraces competence, steadiness, a mixture of traditional conservatism with independence-minded moderation, and get-things-done pragmatism rather than scorched-earth partisanship or rigid ideology.

Hogan also stands for a Republican Party that can win elections in blue states and respond to the country’s changing demographics. In the 2018 election, Hogan bested the Democratic “blue wave” and won reelection with majorities of the very groups whose defection from the GOP cost the party control of the House of Representatives: college-educated voters and independents. He also closed the gender gap and won over a third of nonwhite voters, including nearly thirty percent of African Americans, even though his opponent was a nationally-known black Democrat. And he expanded his electoral appeal while retaining the loyalty of state Republicans, who consistently give the governor stronger approval ratings than the president. Hogan has found a way to separate himself from Trump without being so aggressively anti-Trump that it prevents him from appealing to the GOP base.