Larry Hogan won’t run for president but he does offer some advice to the Republicans who do

What is important to the party after Donald Trump? The case of Larry Hogan, an entrepreneur, Senator and Michigan businessman, and the future of the Republican Party

Hogan said that it was time to rethink what was important to the party after Donald Trump lost the last three elections.

Commonsense conservatives focused on issues people cared about, like the economy and crime, and won, Hogan said. They all were almost universally rejected by people who tried to relitigate the 2020 election and focus on conspiracy theories.

Announcing his decision in a Sunday New York Times op-ed, Hogan said he cared more about ensuring a future for the Republican Party than securing his own future within it. He urged his Republican colleagues to “move on” from Trump, in the face of his concern about the upcoming election.

Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock and Republican challenger Herschel Walker will meet in the December 6 runoff after neither candidate were projected to surpass the 50% vote threshold needed to win the primary outright. CNN predicts that the Nevada election will make sure that the Democrats hold at least 50 seats in the Senate. (Vice President Kamala Harris, a Democrat, is able to break any 50-50 ties).

Hogan praised Florida’s governor as one of the important voices for the party. A potential GOP presidential contender in the future will be Ron DeSantis, who is expected to have comfortably won his second term last week.

Former Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan said over the weekend that he won’t seek the Republican presidential nomination, ending a lengthy period of consideration and the hopes of those who had wanted the moderate — and vocal critic of former President Donald Trump — to throw his hat in the ring.

Republican challengers include a former U.N. ambassador, an entrepreneur and a Michigan businessman.

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Hogan does not believe that the approach may help DeSantis win the primary but could make him a White House contender. And, he tells NPR, his own story is proof of that.

He says that he is the opposite of that style. “I won in the bluest state in America and was only the second Republican reelected in the entire 248-year history of our state, and I ran 45 points ahead of Donald Trump by winning over swing voters and independents and suburban women and Black voters and Asians and Hispanics.”

Hogan discussed his concern about the state of the party and what he would like to see differently in the upcoming election with Steve Inskeep.

“If the Republican Party wants to get back to winning again, so that they can govern, then they’re going to have to have a message that appeals to a wider group of people,” Hogan says. I believe doubling down on rhetoric to appeal to the base may backfire in a general election.

One of the things that I was concerned about was that the party was focusing on things that were not what the average person was focusing [on]. That’s why we have continually been losing elections of late. It should have been a big election year … last year; we lost races all across the country. Everybody who was … talking about the stolen election or the virus as being fake, or talking about Jan. 6 and not talking about things like the economy and crime and education, most of them all lost.

I did an op-ed in the New York Times a couple of days ago saying that I was dropping out of the race and I wanted to see the Republican Party return to a more traditional Republican Party, which was all about smaller government, but that’s not what we’re seeing from a lot of the other folks that are out there. There’s a big focus on social issues and in some cases on the government getting more aggressive.

That’s certainly what some of the right in the Republican Party are talking about and it seems to be playing with a certain segment of the primary base. I am unsure if it’s a winning message for a nominee or a general election, but it is playing well for certain groups at this time.