Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan urges voters to 'stand against the extremes' in GOP

SIMI VALLEY, Calif. (WBFF) – Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan, not hiding his ambitions to be a player on the national stage, urged voters on Tuesday to “stand against the extremes” and called out the GOP, saying it needs to make a “course correction.”

“We won’t win back the White House by nominating Donald Trump or a cheap impersonation of him,” Hogan said during a high-profile appearance at Ronald Reagan’s presidential library in Simi Valley. “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.”

Hogan was invited to speak at the Reagan library as part of its "Time for Choosing Speaker Series." According to the governor's office, the series is a forum for leading voices in the conservative movement to address critical questions facing the future of the Republican party.

While Hogan was critical of President Joe Biden and Democrats, he also pointed to flaws within his own party, laying out a vision for the GOP. Hogan is presenting himself to Republican voters as a potential alternative to Trump and his brand of politics.

“A party that lost the popular vote in seven out of the last eight presidential elections and that couldn’t even beat Joe Biden is desperately in need of course correction,” he said. “The truth is the last election was not rigged and it wasn’t stolen. We simply didn’t offer the majority of voters what they were looking for.”

Hogan said the last four years were the worst for the GOP since the 1930s -- “even worse than after Watergate when Ronald Reagan had to rebuild the party from the ashes.”

The governor also spoke out against Trump's role in the Jan. 6 attack on the capitol, saying “it was an outrageous attack on our democracy, incited by the losing candidate’s inflammatory false rhetoric.”

Hogan, who has strong approval ratings, is nearing the end of his second term as governor. He has not formally decided to enter the presidential race and has said he would wait until his term expires to make any formal announcements.