Maryland Gov. Larry Logan told The Washington Post that he will not challenge President Donald Trump for the 2020 GOP nomination, ending his flirtation with a possible insurgent campaign that would have offered an alternative to moderate Republicans who are dissatisfied with Trump's tenure in office.
"I'm not going to be a candidate for president in 2020," Hogan told the Post.
The popular, centrist governor said he did not want to be pulled away from his duties in Annapolis by a long-shot campaign against an incumbent president who remains popular with the party base.
"I have a commitment to the 6 million people of Maryland and a lot of work to do, things we haven't completed," the governor told the Post.
A Republican governing in a largely Democratic state, Hogan managed to win a second term in 2018 despite the blue wave that gave Democrats control of the House of Representatives in Washington.
Hogan has a very high approval rating in Maryland. Eighty percent of Marylanders approved of his handling of state government in a February poll. But 55% said he should not run for president.
In an interview with CNBC in March, Hogan said he would consider challenging Trump "if the president weakened and I really thought it was important to the country," but even at that time he suggested that scenario was unlikely.
"There are more things I want to get done, and I also don't want to go on some fool's errand," Hogan said. "Nobody's successfully challenged a sitting president in their primary since 1884, and I don't want to just run around the country and put my family and everybody through that kind of an effort for no reason."
Hogan is the son of the only Republican in Congress to vote for all three articles of impeachment against President
Richard Nixon during the Watergate crisis.
Trump said he would formally announce his re-election bid on June 18 at a rally in Orlando, Florida.
Though Hogan has bowed out, Trump will face a challenge from at least one other candidate. William Weld, former Republican governor of Massachusetts, announced in April that he would challenged the president for the nomination.
Read the full story in The Washington Post.
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