Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan, shown delivering his annual State of the State address in Annapolis on Jan. 30, said that President Donald Trump would be "pretty weak in the general election." | AP Photo/Patrick Semansky 2020 elections Maryland Gov. Hogan leaves the door open for primary challenge against Trump

Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan on Wednesday did not rule out mounting a 2020 Republican primary challenge against President Donald Trump, further stoking speculation in a CBS interview about his plans for next year’s presidential race.

While he cautioned that he was sworn in for his second term as governor just a month ago, Hogan didn’t deny that he is being courted for a GOP primary run by critics of the president.


“I would say 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,” he told CBS News’ Ed O’Keefe in an interview that aired Wednesday morning.

He also predicted that more Republicans could primary Trump depending on what special counsel Robert Mueller reveals after the conclusion of the Russia investigation.

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Hogan conceded that Trump is “unlikely” to be vulnerable to a primary challenge but warned that if Trump does secure the GOP nomination, “he’s pretty weak in the general election.”

Hogan was one of the most prominent elected Republicans in 2016 to decline to support the president, and he has not been shy about publicly disagreeing with Trump. Maryland was the only GOP-led state to join a lawsuit filed last week challenging Trump’s declaration of a national emergency to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, and Hogan himself has been outspoken at times in breaking with the GOP in his criticisms of the president.

The blue-state Republican has enjoyed high approval ratings from Democrats and Republicans alike during his tenure in office, easily winning reelection last fall in reliably Democratic Maryland. He hasn’t discouraged talk of potentially challenging the president for the GOP nomination, and his potency as a possible challenger has drawn attention from Trump’s reelection team.

Hogan is one of a handful of Republicans rumored to be mulling a primary challenge, along with former Ohio Gov. John Kasich, who also ran against Trump in the 2016 GOP primary. Former Massachusetts Gov. Bill Weld, a Republican who was the Libertarian Party’s 2016 vice presidential nominee, announced last week that he would form an exploratory committee to consider a primary challenge to Trump.

In his interview with CBS, Hogan added later that he wouldn’t reveal whom he plans to support — or not support — so far ahead of the 2020 election, saying cryptically that “I don’t know who the nominees in either party are going to be.”

But, he said, “I don’t see how my position would change much from before, I haven’t become more supportive than I was four years ago.”