Maryland Governor Larry Hogan is still playing (sort of) coy. When asked on Wednesday about reports that he’s weighing a primary challenge to Donald Trump, he replied, “I’m being approached from a lot of different people, and I guess the best way to put it is I haven’t thrown them out of my office.” Despite the stream of visitors, which has reportedly included ur-Never Trumper Bill Kristol, Hogan faces a near-insurmountable hurdle: the incipient Trump campaign has essentially absorbed the R.N.C., joining forces with the party and boxing out any potential primary challenger, while working to ensure that only delegates loyal to Trump show up on the convention floor. When Hogan’s name surfaced a month ago, Trump’s campaign director, Chris Carr, fired a warning shot: “Any potential challenger should understand that the Trump campaign is better organized than any campaign in history, especially with the support of the Republican Party, which is firmly behind the president.”

Even if he’s not quite ready to announce a challenge, Hogan’s clearly peeved at Carr’s chutzpah. In an interview with Politico published Thursday, the popular Maryland governor ripped the R.N.C.’s strategy to lock down the 2020 primary, calling it an “unprecedented” move. “It’s very undemocratic and to say, ‘We’re in some cases not going to allow a debate, we may not have a primary,’” he said. “And the question is, what are they afraid of? Because on the one hand you look at polls, 70 percent of Republicans support the president in a primary. Why are they so concerned? Why the puffing out the chest?”

The answer, he proposed, is that Republican leadership is genuinely worried about Trump’s viability, particularly as Robert Mueller’s report looms. “Perhaps the way things look today are not the way they think things look a few months from now or next week or six months from now,” Hogan said. “Maybe they’re concerned that they will drop in the polls and that they could be at some point down the road be subject to a threat in a primary.”

Hogan is correct: numerous polls, particularly out of swing states like Wisconsin and Iowa, have found that, though Republican voters would likely vote for Trump again in 2020, they are open to a primary challenger. Notably, few want to see anyone with a national profile run again—in Wisconsin, for instance, Trump soundly beat former rivals Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, and likely candidate John Kasich—but that could leave the door open to relative unknowns. Hogan, who easily won re-election in blue-leaning Maryland, may be in a position to offer Republican voters a Trump alternative. “I’ve been pretty clear, I don’t like the tone that the president uses,” he told CBS on Wednesday. “I think there are times where he acts irrationally, and makes decisions and . . . does things in a way that aren’t great for the Republican Party, or for the country, or for him and his agenda, for that matter. I mean, I think sometimes he can be his own worst enemy.”

Trump’s behavior in 2016 and beyond could certainly pose a problem. “I think you would see a number of potential challengers in the Republican Party consider jumping in” if Mueller’s report proves damning, Hogan warned. That, in turn, could cripple Trump—presidents forced to spend precious time and resources campaigning against a challenger typically end up losing the general election. (Bill Weld, the former Republican governor of Massachusetts, is going this route, announcing a kamikaze-style campaign earlier this month.) Other potential candidates are reportedly lying in wait, eyes trained on the special counsel. But if people like Mitt Romney and Ben Sasse are remaining quiet for now—they do, after all, have to be team players in the Senate—Hogan clearly has no compunctions about speaking his mind, visiting Iowa, and conferring with New Hampshire power brokers at Saint Anselm College. “At this point in time, I don’t see any path to winning a Republican primary against this president, or anybody doing it. But things have a way of changing,” he said. “I don’t know what the lay of the land is going to look like this summer, or in the fall.”

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