Larry Hogan
Lawrence Joseph Hogan Jr. is an American politician who served as the 62nd governor of Maryland from 2015 to 2023. A member of the Republican Party and son of three-term U.S. representative Lawrence Hogan, he served as co-chair of the centrist organization No Labels from 2020 to 2023. As of 2025, Hogan and Boyd Rutherford, his lieutenant governor, are the last Republicans to have won or held statewide office in Maryland.
Hogan unsuccessfully campaigned for his father's old district, Maryland's 5th congressional district in 1981 and 1992, the latter of which was incumbent Steny Hoyer's closest race. He then served in the cabinet of governor Bob Ehrlich from 2003 to 2007 as Maryland Secretary of Appointments. In 2011, Hogan founded the Change Maryland organization, which he used to promote his 2014 gubernatorial campaign. He campaigned as a moderate Republican and defeated Democrat Anthony Brown in the general election in what was considered an upset. Hogan was reelected in 2018, defeating Democrat Ben Jealous, to become Maryland's first two-term Republican governor since Theodore McKeldin won re-election in 1954. He was term limited from running for a third term in 2022, though refused to endorse Republican candidate Dan Cox. Hogan was succeeded by Democrat Wes Moore and left office as one of the most popular governors in the country.
After leaving office, Hogan was initially seen as a likely contender for the Republican nomination in the 2024 presidential election, but he declined to run and later endorsed Nikki Haley instead of the eventual nominee, Donald Trump. On February 9, 2024, Hogan filed and launched a campaign for the 2024 United States Senate election in Maryland, seeking to succeed retiring incumbent Democratic U.S. Senator Ben Cardin. He won the Republican primary election on May 14, 2024, but was defeated by Prince George's County Executive Angela Alsobrooks in the general election on November 5, 2024.
Early life, family, and education
Hogan was born in 1956 in Washington, D.C., and grew up in Landover, Maryland, attending Saint Ambrose Catholic School and DeMatha Catholic High School. After his parents divorced in 1972, he moved to Florida with his mother and graduated from Father Lopez Catholic High School in 1974. Hogan is the son of Nora and Lawrence Hogan Sr., who served as U.S. Representative from Maryland's 5th congressional district from 1969 to 1975 and as Prince George's County executive from 1978 to 1982. Hogan Sr. was the first Republican member of the U.S. House Judiciary Committee to call for Richard Nixon's impeachment. His parents were both of Irish descent.Hogan attended Florida State University from 1974 to 1978 and earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in government and political science.
Early career
As the son of a U.S. representative, Hogan was exposed to politics at a young age and worked in many aspects of politics, including political campaigns and citizen referendums.While in college, Hogan worked in the Florida legislature. Upon graduation, he worked on Capitol Hill. Hogan helped his father run a successful campaign in 1978 for Prince George's County executive and later worked for him as a low-paid "intergovernmental liaison".
In 1981, at age 24, Hogan first ran for office in the special election to fill the vacancy in Maryland's 5th congressional district left by Gladys Noon Spellman. Spellman had succeeded Hogan's father in the office. Hogan finished second out of 12 candidates in the Republican primary with 22% of the vote, behind Bowie Mayor Audrey Scott's 63%.
In 1985, Hogan founded Hogan Companies, which is engaged in brokerage, consulting, investment and development of land, commercial and residential properties. He spent the next 18 years in the private sector.
In 1992, Hogan was the Republican nominee for Maryland's 5th congressional district, running against Democratic incumbent Steny Hoyer. Hoyer outspent Hogan by a 6-to-1 margin. The race was the closest in Hoyer's tenure. Hogan won four of the district's five counties and 44% of the vote to Hoyer's 53%, with William Johnston at 3%.
Hogan took a four-year leave of absence from his business to serve as Maryland's secretary of appointments in Bob Ehrlich's administration from 2003 to 2007. In this capacity, Hogan appointed over 7,000 people to positions in the Maryland government.
In 2011, Hogan founded Change Maryland, a nonprofit anti-tax advocacy organization that was used to criticize Governor Martin O'Malley's administration. The organization promoted Hogan's gubernatorial run, and his campaign eventually purchased its assets. The Maryland Democratic Party alleged that Hogan had improperly received campaign benefits from the nonprofit; the State Board of Elections dismissed two of the complaints but found Hogan's campaign had not properly disclosed the value of a poll the nonprofit did before purchasing its assets.
Governor of Maryland
As governor, media outlets labeled Hogan as a moderate Republican and a "pragmatist". In 2015, The Washington Posts editorial board wrote that he was "true to his promise to govern from the center in the first legislative session of his term." In a 2022 Morning Consult poll, Hogan was listed as the third-most popular governor in the United States, with a 70% approval rating. Despite his popularity, Hogan had no coattail effect on any downballot races in Maryland, with Democrats expanding their legislative supermajority and picking up several county-level seats during his tenure.As governor, Hogan had a more hands-off approach to legislating, having never testified for any of the bills he proposed each year, unlike previous governors. He left office with few legislative accomplishments, but defended his approach to legislating by saying that he "never intended to enact a bunch of policies". Hogan frequently vetoed bills passed by the Maryland General Assembly, which was controlled by a Democratic supermajority during his entire tenure as governor, meaning that legislative leaders had to ensure bills passed by veto-proof majorities and had to schedule enough time for the legislature to override his vetoes on priority bills.
Hogan served as vice chair of the National Governors Association from 2018 to 2019 and as chair from 2019 to 2020. In 2019, Hogan raised the possibility of running for president in 2020, but he later decided not to run. In June, he addressed the Maryland Free Enterprise Foundation, a business advocacy group, in a combative speech, "skewering Democrats who control the state legislature and vowing to spend the remainder of his term in 'battle' with them." Hogan promised to work against tax increases.
Hogan's real estate business repeatedly came under scrutiny during his tenure as governor, as Hogan was a member of the Maryland Board of Public Works and had the ability to set rules for state housing projects and to award grants and tax credits to developers. Shortly after becoming governor, Hogan entered into a trust agreement that was managed by his younger brother, Timothy, and allowed him to remain informed of his real estate firm's investments, including its finances and the locations of its real estate projects.
In January 2020, Washington Monthly, a political magazine, reported that Hogan allegedly continued to regularly meet with the firm's trustees, held properties near state transportation projects that he earmarked funding for in the state's annual budget, and did not disclose any of his nearby property interests to the General Assembly before legislators voted to approve such funding, thus allowing him to profit from state investments. A spokesperson for Hogan denied these accusations, saying that Hogan was in full compliance with the state's ethics laws and had no involvement in the decision to fund these transportation projects. During the 2021 legislative session, the Maryland General Assembly unanimously passed the Integrity in High Office Act, which would require statewide officials to submit enhanced disclosures detailing the businesses/subsidiaries and properties they owned. The bill became law without Governor Hogan's signature. At least two ethics complaints relating to Hogan's potential conflicts of interest were also filed against him, but state officials failed to discover any ethics laws he violated as of October 2024.
In October 2024, an investigation from Time found that Hogan awarded nearly 40 percent of the state's competitive affordable housing awards to developers listed as clients to Hogan's firm. Time found no record of him ever recusing himself while in office. When asked about these affordable housing contracts by reporters, Hogan said he had not read the Time report, but described it as an "October surprise" that didn't have any truth to it. After the Time report was published, Maryland Democrats—including Hogan's successor, Governor Wes Moore—called for investigations into state contracts approved by Hogan and endorsed legislation requiring future governors to use blind trusts to manage their finances, which Governor Moore signed into law in May 2025. Time followed up by reporting that Hogan awarded millions in competitive affordable housing contracts to land owned by his stepmother, Ilona Hogan, who later sold the property for $3.75 million in November 2022.
Between taking office and February 2017, Hogan's Facebook page blocked over 450 people. One spokesman said about half had used "hateful or racist" language, while the rest were part of a "coordinated attack". Affected Marylanders said they had reached out to the governor via Facebook after the 2015 Baltimore protests as well as Donald Trump's Executive Order 13769 in January 2017, which banned travelers from seven predominantly Muslim countries.
In March 2017, it was discovered that Hogan staffers altered headlines of The Baltimore Sun and DelmarvaNow articles posted on his Facebook page to falsely imply General Assembly support for Hogan's so-called "Road Kill Bill". After the Baltimore Sun contacted Hogan's office about the doctored headlines, the office rectified the problem.