- Gov. Larry Hogan is expected to call for the GOP to move beyond Trump in a Reagan Library speech on Tuesday.
- "We won't win back the White House by nominating Donald Trump or a cheap impersonation," Hogan is set to say.
- The Maryland Republican will argue that the GOP is "desperately in need of course correction," per Axios and the WSJ.
Gov. Larry Hogan of Maryland is expected to call for the Republican Party to move past former President Donald Trump in a speech on Tuesday night at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library.
"We won't win back the White House by nominating Donald Trump or a cheap impersonation of him," Hogan is set to say, according to copies of his speech obtained by Axios and The Wall Street Journal. "The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result."
The Maryland Republican plans to argue that the GOP is "desperately in need of course correction," having "lost the popular vote in seven out of the last eight presidential elections."
"The truth is the last election was not rigged and it wasn't stolen," Hogan is slated to say. "We simply didn't offer the majority of voters what they were looking for."
Hogan, a Maryland Republican, has criticized and clashed with Trump for years. He is one of the few Republican governors to do so.
Trump, Hogan told the Journal, "was his own worst enemy and picked fights and turned people off unnecessarily and really wasn't that successful at getting anything done."
Hogan, who is leaving the governor's office next year, passed up the opportunity to run for US Senate in 2022 and is said to be considering a presidential run himself in 2024.
"It's more of a difference between those who know how to win and those who only pretend that they won," Hogan is expected to say at the Reagan Library, a familiar stomping ground for Republican presidential hopefuls. "Enough of the angry rhetoric and the grievance politics. Enough of the narcissism of small differences. We can't build a successful party by tearing it apart, or burning it down."
Hogan is also set to denounce the January 6 Capitol insurrection in his speech.
"Jan. 6 was not enthusiastic tourists misbehaving," he will say. "It was an outrageous attack on our democracy, incited by the losing candidate's inflammatory false rhetoric. The last four years were the worst four years for the Republican Party since the 1930s, even worse than after Watergate when Ronald Reagan had to rebuild the party from the ashes."
Hogan will also warn the Republican Party against "complacency" in the 2022 midterms, where the party is expected to make big gains in Congress.
A series of crucial primaries throughout the month of May will test the continued power of Trump's endorsements and his grip over the Republican Party.
The first test on Tuesday evening will take place in Ohio, when Trump-endorsed Senate candidate J.D. Vance is running in a crowded primary field for the open seat currently held by GOP Sen. Rob Portman. And later this month, Trump-endorsed candidates are competing in primaries in West Virginia, Idaho, and Georgia.
"What happens in 2022 may have some bearing on what happens in 2024," Hogan told the Journal. "It's going to show a little bit about which direction the party wants to head and how critically important—or not—is an endorsement from Donald Trump."
Hogan himself is campaigning for several Republicans facing Trump-backed primary challengers in 2022, including Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp and Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski, he told the Journal.
"He's going to lose more than he's going to win, which is sort of what's been happening for the past four years," Hogan told the Journal of Trump.
Hogan told Axios that he expects the 2024 presidential primary to have over a dozen candidates all clamoring for Trump's base, creating an opening for a more moderate candidate running
"I want to go in a completely different direction, and I think that lane is wide open," Hogan said.