Earlier this week, a former Republican member of Congress from northern Virginia posted on X that she had voted for Kamala Harris. She is the same Republican who conservatives voted for repeatedly despite significant disagreements on important issues. But when the shoe was on the other foot, she not only didn’t vote for the nominee of her ‘party,’ she sought to encourage others to join her in defeating that nominee.
Why is this relevant?
As a Maryland resident, I have Larry Hogan continually sending me text messages, mailers, and other communications asking for money and my vote. This is the same Governor Hogan who called the man who defeated his hand-selected choice to succeed him “mentally unstable” because of his support for Donald Trump.
This is the same Larry Hogan who continues to assure Maryland voters that he isn’t voting for Donald Trump against a far-left California nutjob who failed to secure the border, cast the deciding vote for the Green New Deal masked as the Inflation Reduction Act, and was rated as the most liberal member of the U.S. Senate in 2019, surpassing even Bernie Sanders in her socialist appeal.
And somehow Larry can’t vote against Kamala because he loathes Donald Trump and all who support him so much?
Well, as a Trump supporter and an honest individual, I cannot vote against Larry Hogan. His opponent is a corrupt leftist who will sit in the Senate for 30 years doing bad things to the country.
But can I vote for Larry?
The answer is no.
I will be leaving the Senate race blank on my ballot because Hogan will be far more problematic than his opponent over the next four years of the Trump presidency. Hogan will spend his time chasing Washington Post headlines as the independent senator who has the guts to stand up to Trump, looking for opportunities to block the Trump agenda.
As an ostensibly Republican senator, his continued opposition to Trump nominees and policies will be exaggerated and as someone who sees himself as a GOP or No Labels nominee for president in 2028, Hogan will spend the entire Trump administration working with Chuck Schumer to subvert President Trump’s presidency and promote himself.
I also will not vote for Hogan’s Democrat opponent, because unlike the former congresswoman from northern Virginia who has embraced Harris, I won’t vote for someone whose entire belief system is antithetical to mine and a profound danger to individual liberty in America.
But I would ask Larry a simple question.
Why should a Trump supporter vote for you when you constantly attack Trump?
For this Trump supporter who first voted for Hogan in 1992 when he ran against Steny Hoyer for Congress, I am taking the hint in 2024 and just leaving my ballot for U.S. Senate blank. I refuse to vote for someone who openly despises the candidate who fairly won the GOP nomination and his supporters, and I won’t vote for his opponent, who would most likely be the first AOC “squad” member in the United States Senate.
For once, I am not going to hold my nose and vote for the lesser of two evils. Sorry, Larry, but if you aren’t compelled to vote for the GOP nominee for president, why would you expect me to vote for you simply because you won the party nominee for Senate?
As President George H.W. Bush once said when referring to eating broccoli, “not gonna do it, not gonna do it.”
I say to many Democrats who can’t stand both Trump and Harris that the best policy is not to vote. At least it reduces the Harris tally. In this particular race the shoe is on the other foot. The problem Trump had in his first term, should he win a second term, will once again be RINOS such as McConnell and Hogan. This election, more than any other election, has exposed the Republican Party RINOS for what they are and what they have done. They are apostates who represent more of the enemy within than the Democrat Socialists and Marxists do. They give life to weekend talk show hosts and talking points for far left candidates who clammer about bipartisanship. They need to be defeated at all levels and, like Liz Cheney, seek refuge to lick their wounds in the party they do do more to advance than the party’s real inhabitants.
I sympathize with Mr. Manning’s dilemma since I face a similar one, at the state level, this election. I have the choice of an outright Progressive and a new “undeclared” candidate, which in Alaskan politics is often shorthand for “leftist but unwilling to own it publicly”. I cannot vote for the incumbent ( the Progressive) and, after scrutinizing the challenger to the best of my ability, I am concerned that he may be as bad as she is in terms of what he will likely support.
Here is where my election-day calculations differ from Mr. Manning’s. My district is generally low-income with pockets of middle-class neighborhoods and probably the most demographically diverse & reliably left-leaning district in Anchorage. Frankly, whichever candidate promises the most freebies usually wins ( yes, I live in enemy territory). So, whatever candidate wins this state House seat is probably not going to be someone who aligns with my thoughts on policy or governance. But, new incoming Reps have little-to-no pull, are not part of any coalition, don’t get committee seats and are generally less likely to do harm. So, in order to knee-cap the Progressive’s career path, I will vote for the unknown and hope that I a) am pleasantly surprised when he truly is not aligned with any party ideology & therefore may be capable of making a good decision when faced with reality or b) I have a better option in 2 years
I believe in 2013 shortly after I accidentally had a run in with Eric Cantor he was, surprisingly, voted out. Incumbency takes a lot for granted and that’s fine in good times.