GOP’s Youngkin and Hogan have little in common, except big ambitions
As potential 2024 primary rivals, they’d occupy entirely different lanes: Hogan as a relative social moderate and unabashed critic of former president Donald Trump; Youngkin as a genial but aggressive culture warrior who has treaded cautiously with Trump and cozied up to election deniers.
Perhaps the starkest contrast lies with their perceived odds in the 2024 Republican presidential race. While neither registers in national polls, Youngkin has been widely touted as a leading GOP contender from the moment in 2021 that he flipped blue-trending Virginia red. Hogan, who leaves office this month after two terms and boasts one of the highest popularity ratings of any of the nation’s governors, rarely gets a mention.
“You can see a Youngkin lane, Trump-acquiescent but not as Trumpy as [Florida Gov. Ron] DeSantis,” said Bill Kristol, a longtime conservative commentator and Trump critic who lives in Northern Virginia. Though he admires Hogan, Kristol sees no similar path for him.
“One is going with the flow, one’s trying to swim against the flow,” said Amy Walter, publisher and editor in chief of the nonpartisan Cook Political Report With Amy Walter. “The challenge for Hogan has always been: Is there room for a non-Trump candidate? Absolutely. For a never-Trump candidate? No.”
Beyond his opposition to Trump, Hogan’s moderate record makes him a tough sell to the Republican primary electorate, political analysts and strategists say. He’s generally avoided social issues, signed some gun-control bills (a red-flag law and bump-stock ban), called abortion rights “settled law” despite his personal opposition as a Catholic, and taken aggressive steps to curb the spread of the coronavirus — including exhorting residents to “wear the damn mask” and report large gatherings to a police hotline.
In that sense, Hogan resembles other blue-state Republican governors whose stances make them electable at home but out of step with today’s national GOP primary electorate, said Kevin Madden, a former adviser on Sen. Mitt Romney’s (R-Utah) two presidential campaigns and a senior partner at Penta Group, a strategic advisory firm for businesses and nonprofits.
Hogan is “not being mentioned as prominently the same way the Republican governor of Vermont is not being mentioned,” he said, adding that today’s Republican primary voters are more inclined toward candidates who have “a record of fighting the perceived threats of the left. Hogan’s just not identified with that.”
Analysts see far better odds for Youngkin, who has catered to the more sizable Republican electorate in purple Virginia. He has…
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