Hogan not ruling out third-party White House bid

Former Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan (R) on Tuesday said that he’s not ruling out a third-party bid for the White House, after already having announced that he will not seek the Republican nomination in 2024. 

“I have ruled out seeking the Republican nomination. And I haven’t ruled that out,” Hogan told ABC News of a potential third-party run. “But it’s not something I’m really working toward or thinking about.”

“The question keeps popping up more and more,” he added.

Hogan, who had been publicly mulling a run for the GOP nomination for several months, announced on Sunday that he would not launch a Republican bid for president.

“I did give it serious consideration and I talked to people everywhere and I talked to my family,” Hogan told CBS News. “And it was a tough decision. But I’ve decided that I will not be a candidate for the Republican nomination for president.”

The former Maryland governor, who left office last year after being term-limited, said that former President Trump did not deter him from joining the race. Rather, Hogan said he wanted to give other candidates polling in the “single digits” a chance against Trump and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.

“I didn’t want to have a pile up of a bunch of people fighting,” he said. “Right now, you have Trump and DeSantis at the top of the field, they’re soaking up all the oxygen, getting all the attention. And then a whole lot of the rest of us in single digits and the more of them you have, the less chance you have for somebody rising up.”

However, if the 2024 election ends up being a rematch between Trump and President Biden, Hogan told ABC News on Tuesday that the centrist political group No Labels would launch a third-party bid as a last-ditch effort.

“I’m not sure we’re gonna get to that point. I don’t know that,” Hogan, who serves as an honorary co-chair of the group, said. “Frankly, I’m hopeful that Donald Trump is not going to be the Republican nominee. And I’m going to work toward that goal. And I’m assuming Biden may be the nominee, but who knows? I mean, he’s 80 years old. And we got a long ways to go.”

While Hogan said he’s not “working toward” putting his name on such a third-party ticket, he isn’t closing the door to a run.

“I mean, look, if you got to an election when the nominees were Biden and Trump and 70 percent of America didn’t want that, you wouldn’t rule it out, right?” he added.