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Politico
a few seconds ago
- Politico
A Larry Hogan return could jeopardize Wes Moore's White House prospects
What up, Recast fam. A couple of programming notes before we jump into today's edition. First, we will be on hiatus next week, returning to your inboxes on Wednesday Sept. 3. THE RECAST SIGNS OFF: After four years, The Recast is wrapping up its run. But this work isn't going anywhere. With questions of race, identity and power still at the center of American politics, we're moving our coverage beyond a single weekly newsletter and bringing it to you across multiple POLITICO platforms. You'll keep seeing this work in stories like our look at how Black mayors are navigating Donald Trump's return to Washington and the growing political power of South Asian voters. You can follow my reporting and analysis in Weekly Score, West Wing Playbook and on our homepage. And you can find more of our reporting on how today's political disruption collides with questions of race and identity in the POLITICO Nightly newsletter. Our final edition is Sept. 9. I hope you'll follow along in these other spaces. And now to our regularly scheduled program. Maryland Gov. Wes Moore, the nation's only Black governor, may soon receive a formidable challenger who could be a major obstacle to the first-term Democrat's reelection prospects next year — and doom whatever political future he continues to say he's not interested in seeking. Republican Larry Hogan, Moore's Republican predecessor, teased a return to politics last week. He posted on Facebook and Instagram a pair of images of RVs: one a standard version you'd see on the highway in the final days of summer, the other decked out in campaign paraphernalia, including the yellow, black, red and white of Maryland's state flag. The stylized version also included Hogan's tagline from his unsuccessful 2024 Senate run, 'Let's Get Back To Work!' 'Slightly used 2024 RV, only 15,000 miles all in Maryland. Never slept in,' Hogan wrote. 'Could make a good deal. Or…I guess we could always rewrap it and get back out on the road again?' In conversations with half a dozen elected officials, strategists and pollsters, many portrayed Hogan as a political force. As they see it, he's likely the only Republican in the state that has enough name ID and fundraising ability to challenge Moore should he officially jump into the 2026 governor's race. Posting images on social media platforms is far from a declaration of candidacy. But it's certainly got people talking. Interestingly, the ones who aren't talking are members of Hoganworld, who're being unusually silent after insisting for months that there's no truth to the rumors that Hogan is itching to jump back into politics. Was The Recast forwarded to you by a friend? Don't forget to subscribe to the newsletter here. You'll get a weekly breakdown of how race and identity are the DNA of American politics and policy. I did get one former Hogan aide to talk — granted anonymity to discuss the former governor's future prospects — who took the opportunity to knock Moore. 'I think his liability has always been the perception that he is a very ambitious politician – even before he became governor,' the person said. 'That's always a tricky thing when you're running for reelection, but you have your eyes on a bigger prize.' The person adds that's certainly a line of attack for Hogan to utilize, but adds: 'Whether that's enough to build that whole campaign, I don't know.' Hogan is a popular ex-governor who served two terms and is generally well-regarded in the state. He left office with sky-high approval ratings that hovered near 80 percent and as a Republican leading a deep-blue state won over voters in part for lowering taxes and his adversarial stances against Donald Trump during the president's first term. Still, Maryland state Sen. Malcolm Augustine (D), a Moore ally, does not see this as a ripe political environment for Hogan's political comeback. 'Just given what is happening at the federal level, I simply don't see a path for Larry Hogan,' he said, pointing to the Trump-led cuts in the federal workforce, which by one measure has impacted Maryland more than any other state in the nation. 'Larry Hogan was actively against Donald Trump,' Augustine continued. 'It's not like he gets to say, 'Oh, you know it's gonna be so much better under me.' No, it's [going to] be worse.' That's because Trump and Hogan, who has been public about not ever voting for the president in 2016, 2020 and 2024, don't like each other. Augustine predicts that Hogan's road back to the governor's mansion would be hamstrung by Trump. Trump, who's known for holding grudges, would likely exact even more vengeance on the state. Since returning to the White House, the Trump administration has halted plans for the new FBI headquarters to be built in Maryland's suburbs, just outside of Washington as well as ending other new construction projects for the Bureau of Engraving and Printing and cancelling research studying health gaps between racial and socioeconomic groups at the National Institutes of Health, also based in Maryland. This week, Moore and Trump got into a bit of a tit-for-tat exchange when the governor announced he wouldn't be deploying the Maryland National Guard into D.C. 'They say maybe he'll be a president — he's not presidential temper at all,' Trump said, hinting that he might take over other Democrat-led cities, including Baltimore. Moore is seen as a future leader of the Democratic Party delivering the keynote address at a closely-watched party dinner in the presidential early-voting state of South Carolina in May and even drawing looks from Hollywood icon and Democratic megadonor George Clooney, who described him as 'a proper leader.' Still, he's had to navigate headwinds heading in recent months, particularly with those federal job cuts. He and the Democratic-controlled legislature in May raised taxes and fees to help close a more than $3 billion budget shortfall. And he's seen a slip in his approval rating slip to 50 percent approval with a 42 percent disapproval according to the Maryland Now Poll released last week. The survey continued a recent trend for Moore this year showing his gap between approval and disapproval narrowing. 'Wes Moore turned a historic surplus and tax cuts into an out of control deficit and tax hikes,' Courtney Alexander, Republican Governors Association Communications Director said in a statement. 'Marylanders don't want another four years of tax increases and runaway spending with nothing to offer except blame and empty smiles with no results.' Hogan is a savvy politician, notes Mileah Kromer, a well regarded pollster and director of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County's Institute of Politics. Kromer believes the well-timed social media post has the hallmarks of Hogan keeping his name in the mix, even if there's little evidence a campaign is being set up. 'Is he gonna just surprise us at the filing deadline again?' Kromer asks, nodding to the months of denial Hogan kept pushing about entering the U.S. Senate race, before filing his candidate paperwork on the last day of the filing deadline. She adds that even though Hogan lost to Sen. Angela Alsobrooks by double digits in last year's Senate race, he can write that off as part of the Trump effect in a state Kamala Harris carried by nearly 30 points. Moore, she said, would be a tough opponent, but sees no other Maryland Republican who could mount a credible challenge to Moore next year. So what do we make of Hogan's social media post where he hinted at taking his campaign RV 'back out on the road again?' One senior Democratic operative summed up Hogan's post this way: 'He's fucking around…there's no operation being built as far as we can tell…He's a bored narcissist. I don't think it's that complicated.' All the best,The Recast Team PHOTO OF THE DAY On Monday evening, Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) who is unabashedly kicking the tires on a future White House run, traveled to the key swing state of Georgia. It was the latest stop on his 'Benefits Over Billionaires' where he railed against the president's 'big, beautiful bill' that Trump signed into law on July 4 and critics like Khanna say provide tax benefits for the nation's top earners. Khanna, pictured second to the left, posed for a photo with progressive activist Nina Turner and Atlanta-based rapper and activist Killer Mike, whose government name is Michael Render, ahead of the event at the Teamsters Local 728 Union Hall. Also pictured is civil rights leader and former chairman of the 1960s Atlanta Student movement Charles Black (far left) and Rohit Malhotra, a candidate for Atlanta City Council President (far right). WHAT WE'RE WATCHING THIS WEEK Trump renews vote by mail crusade – Republicans poured tens of millions of dollars last year into convincing their voters that casting ballots by mail was safe after Trump lambasted it. But now Trump is attacking mail voting again as he ratchets up his push to protect Republicans' House majority in the midterms. POLITICO's Lisa Kashinsky, Jessica Piper and Holly Otterbein break it all down. And more… TODAY'S CULTURE NEWS New, hip vocabulary – 'Skibidi,' 'trad wife,' and 'delulu,' are among the 6,000 words being added to the Cambridge Dictionary. See what other words made the cut. ESPN drops plans to air Kaepernick doc – The sports network has reversed course and will no longer air Spike Lee's documentary series focusing on ex-NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick. Tramell Tillmen on Hollywood stardom – The actor, who portrays Seth Milchick in Apple TV+'s mind-bending drama 'Severance,' opens up about his historic Emmy nomination: He's the first openly gay Black man to be recognized in the supporting actor drama category.
The Hill
29 minutes ago
- The Hill
California Republicans file suit to halt redistricting plan
California Republican legislators on Tuesday announced a state Supreme Court petition, an effort to stop Gov. Gavin Newsom's (D) plan to redistrict House seats in the Golden State. 'Today I joined my colleagues in filing a lawsuit challenging the rushed redistricting process. California's Constitution requires bills to be in print for 30 days, but that safeguard was ignored. By bypassing this provision, Sacramento has effectively shut voters out of engaging in their own legislative process,' Assemblyman Tri Ta said on X. The petition cites a section of the state constitution that requires a month-long review period for new legislation. Democrats are working quickly to set up a special election that would let voters weigh in on the redistricting plan. Four state Republican legislators have signed on to the petition, according to a copy for a writ of mandate, shared by the New York Times. They're asking for immediate relief, no later than Aug. 20, and arguing that action can't be taken on the legislative package before Sep. 18. 'Last night, we filed a petition with the California Supreme Court to stop the California legislature from violating the rights of the people of California,' said Mike Columbo, a partner at Dhillon Law Group, in a Tuesday press conference alongside California Republicans. 'The California constitution clearly gives the people of California the right to see new legislation that the legislature is going to consider, and it gives them the right to review it for 30 days,' Columbo said. California Democrats swiftly introduced the redistricting legislative package when they reconvened after summer break on Monday, and are expected to vote as soon as Thursday. They have until Friday to complete the plan in time to set up a Nov. 4 special election. Columbo called that pace of action a 'flagrant violation' under the state constitution. Democrats are aiming to put a ballot measure before voters that would allow temporary redistricting, effectively bypassing the existing independent redistricting commission — which was approved by voters more than a decade ago and typically redistricts after each census — to redraw lines in direct response to GOP gerrymandering in other states. California Republicans have vowed to fight back. Democrats, on the other hand, are stressing that they're moving transparently to let voters have the final say on whether redistricting happens.
New York Post
29 minutes ago
- New York Post
Trump's war on mail-in voting is futile — and could hurt the GOP
President Trump is threatening to wage war on mail-in ballots — and the GOP has to hope he thinks again before the 2026 mid-terms. In a Truth Social post, Trump said he is 'going to lead a movement to get rid of MAIL-IN BALLOTS,' and he'll start off with 'an EXECUTIVE ORDER to help bring HONESTY to the 2026 midterm elections.' Trump likes the idea of in-person, same-day voting, which has much to recommend it. Advertisement But mail-in and early voting are so ingrained and widespread that they aren't going anywhere. Most Republicans have concluded that there's no alternative to making use of these modes of voting, and crucially, they managed — most of the time — to get Trump on board in 2024. Advertisement This aided the Republican get-out-the-vote operation in a close election. Clearly, though, Trump believes that mail-in voting is a Democratic plot, and he also hates contemporary voting machines. Old-school paper ballots don't guarantee honesty, however: In an infamous instance of voter fraud, allies of Lyndon Johnson stuffed Box 13 with enough ballots to put him over the top in the very narrow 1948 Democratic Senate primary in Texas. Today's voting machines, moreover, were a reaction to the Florida fiasco in 2000, when punch-card ballots had to be painstakingly examined by hand with a presidential election at stake. Advertisement The fact is that vote-by-mail has been steadily growing since the 1980s, and it needn't favor one side or the other. In Florida, Republicans have long made it a priority to maximize mail voting. A study by the academic Andrew Hall of pre-COVID voting patterns in California, Utah and Washington found a negligible partisan effect as those states rolled out vote-by-mail systems. Advertisement Overall, turnout went up only very slightly, and 'the Democratic share of turnout did not increase appreciably.' Mail-in voting didn't change who was voting, but how they did it — encouraging, as you might expect, voting by mail rather than in-person. Vote-by-mail did have a strong partisan tilt in the COVID election of 2020, in part because Trump inveighed against it. In 2024, Republicans made a concerted effort to make up ground — and succeeded. The GOP went from 24% of the mail vote in the must-win swing state of Pennsylvania in 2020, to 33% in 2024. And Republicans outpaced Democrats in mail-in balloting in Arizona. The advantage to a party of getting people to vote early — whether in person or by mail — is that it takes high-propensity voters off the table. Then, a turnout operation can focus on getting lower-propensity voters to the polls. Get opinions and commentary from our columnists Subscribe to our daily Post Opinion newsletter! Thanks for signing up! Enter your email address Please provide a valid email address. By clicking above you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Never miss a story. Check out more newsletters If no one votes until Election Day, party operatives waste time and money right up to the cusp of the election contacting people who are going to vote no matter what. Advertisement None of this is to say that all mail-in voting is equal. So-called universal mail-in voting, or automatically sending a ballot to every registered voter and scattering live ballots around a state, is a bad practice. Every morning, the NY POSTcast offers a deep dive into the headlines with the Post's signature mix of politics, business, pop culture, true crime and everything in between. Subscribe here! The rules should be more stringent. Advertisement Georgia, for example, gets this right: You have to ask for an absentee ballot and provide your driver's license number or a copy of another form of valid ID. Ballots have to be requested at least 11 days before the election and must be returned by Election Day. The outer 'oath' envelope has to be properly completed or the ballot is subject to being rejected, although the county elections office will provide the voter a chance to 'cure' the envelope. Advertisement It's also important to count early and mail-in ballots quickly, something that too many states fail to do, with California — as usual — the worst offender. States should be expected to abide by whatever rules have been set prior to an election, rather than changing them on the fly, and they should ensure that voter rolls are regularly cleaned up. The real question about vote-by-mail isn't whether it is staying or going, but whether Republicans, too, will take advantage of it. Twitter: @RichLowry
