Trump’s endorsement could sink GOP Senate nominee in competitive race

If any conservative Republican is capable of defeating a strong Democratic candidate in a statewide race in deep blue Maryland in 2024, it's Larry Hogan.

In 2018, the former Maryland governor was reelected by 11 percent despite a Democratic challenge from former NAACP President Ben Jealous. And six years later, Hogan is competing with Democratic nominee Angela Alsobrooks in Maryland's competitive 2024 U.S. Senate race.

But according to The Hill's Jared Gans, Hogan may have an unexpected problem to contend with: an endorsement from Donald Trump.

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Hogan, an outspoken Trump critic, has distanced himself from the former president during his Senate campaign. And many Trump supporters are furious with him for saying that Republicans should respect the verdict in Trump's hush money/falsified business records trial.

Yet Trump, during an appearance on Fox Business, said of Hogan, "Yeah, I'd like to see him win. I think he has a good chance to win…. We gotta take the majority."

Gans stresses that Trump's endorsement is "arguably a liability for a Republican in the deep-blue state," reporting that Democrats are saying Hogan "will have trouble separating himself from the Republican label, and in particular Trump, now that the former president has thrown his support behind him."

Maryland-based Democratic strategist Len Foxwell told The Hill, "It more than anything is illustrative of the problem that is going to plague Gov. Hogan throughout this campaign, which is that no matter what he does or what he says to distance himself from Donald Trump, that is always going to be the canopy over which he runs this race…. It really does crystallize the arguments that Democrats are going to use against Hogan, which is that a vote for Hogan — whether you like him personally or not — is a vote for Republican control of the Senate and a vote for the Trump agenda."

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Read The Hill's full report at this link.