- Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan said he's "tired of losing" following a lackluster GOP showing in the midterms.
- Hogan pointed to former President Donald Trump's continued influence over the GOP as a major issue.
Maryland Republican Gov. Larry Hogan on Sunday criticized former President Donald Trump's continued influence within the GOP, pointing to the ex-president as the source of party's lackluster showing in the 2022 mid tem elections and emphasizing that he's "tired of losing."
During an appearance on CNN's "State of the Union," Hogan told cohost Dana Bash that "the definition of insanity" was repeating the same thing and hoping for something different, which he said would not happen as long as the former president was still the dominant force within the party.
"I think it's basically the third election in a row that Donald Trump has cost us the race, and it's like three strikes, you're out," Hogan said on the program. "The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, expecting a different result. And Donald Trump kept saying, we're going to be winning so much, we will get tired of winning."
"I'm tired of losing. I mean, that's all he's done," he added.
The GOP is coming off a midterm election cycle where they were unsuccessful in its efforts to regain a Senate majority. And while the party had been favored to flip the House by most political observers, control of the lower chamber is still up in the air, a stunning development that has left many Republicans soul-searching as they anticipated major gains last week.
The governor, who was term-limited this year, will be succeeded by Democrat Wes Moore.
Moore, an Army veteran and author, won this year's Maryland gubernatorial election in a landslide over GOP Del. Dan Cox, whom Hogan declined to endorse.
Hogan, who won deep-blue Maryland in 2014 and 2018 by garnering strong support from Republicans and independents — while also peeling off many conservative and moderate Democrats — has floated a potential 2024 presidential campaign.
During the interview, he continued to lament that Republicans did not perform strongly this year, and said that a "whole lot more people" are now singing his tune about Trump after last Tuesday's election results.
"This should have been a huge red wave. It should have been one of the biggest red waves we have ever had, because President Biden's approval rating was so low, one of the lowest historically, more than 70 percent of people thought the country was going in the wrong direction. And yet we still didn't perform," the governor said.
"I have been saying since 2020 that we have to get back to a party that appeals to more people, that can win in tough places, like I have done in Maryland. And I think that lane is much wider now than it was a week ago," he added.