As Maryland GOP seeks to rebuild, former leaders feel estranged

Republican commentator Michael Steele was speaking a few months ago with Bob Ehrlich, one of only two GOP Maryland governors in the last 55 years.

“He’s like, ‘Hey man, I can’t wait to see you at the 20th anniversary of our administration,’” said Steele, Ehrlich’s former lieutenant governor, in an interview.

“I said, ‘What celebration? I don’t know anything about that,’” Steele continued. “I didn’t get an invitation from the state party for a celebration of the 20th anniversary of the Ehrlich-Steele administration.”

Steele’s absence from the Oct. 12 “Salute to Gov. Bob Ehrlich” fundraiser at a BWI Marshall Airport hotel underscores issues facing a party eager to move forward — largely by emphasizing fundraising and grassroots organizing — but yet to reconcile with former stalwarts such as Steele and conservative commentator Linda Chavez who feel estranged because party leaders continue to embrace the polarizing figure of former President Donald Trump.

“I don’t feel at home in the Maryland Republican Party,” said Chavez, who lost a U.S. Senate election to Barbara Mikulski in 1986, and currently hosts a political podcast with fellow conservative Mona Charen. “You have to be willing to do what Ronald Reagan did, which is to compromise. They want to pretend that people like me are progressive, left-leaning [George] Soros surrogates.”

Nicole Beus Harris, a conservative political and marketing consultant, was selected to chair the state party one year ago, replacing Dirk Haire, who didn’t seek reelection. The transition came after the GOP turned over the governor’s office it had held for eight years in 2022 and lost races for Maryland attorney general, comptroller and several county executive offices.

Ehrlich and Adam Wood, the state party’s executive director, told The Baltimore Sun there was no intention to slight Steele, an MSNBC commentator and former state and national party chair who has long urged the party to turn away from Trump and from claims that the 2020 presidential election won by President Joe Biden, a Democrat, was rigged.   

Ehrlich said in an interview that written invitations were not sent out for the celebration. Rather, he said, “that event is basically word of mouth” and he hoped Steele could have attended.

“No Republican has any reason to feel estranged from the MDGOP, as they are welcome to join our efforts,” Wood said in an email.

Steele said the issue wasn’t just about an invitation but that “no one from the state party has reached out to me. You kind of have to have a come-to-Jesus realization that if this party is going to expand and grow, it’s got to figure out what its true landscape is, where it is, who its voters are, how many of those voters are out there.”

Harris, who is married to U.S. Rep. Andy Harris, a longtime Trump backer and the state’s only Republican congressman, declined to be interviewed but responded to written questions from The Sun.

Asked what has changed in the party’s approach this year, she said it “is now focused on training grassroots activists, election workers and observers, campaign staff, and candidates using more resources,” including from the Republican National Committee.

When the presidential election arrives in November next year, she said Maryland Republicans “will be united behind our nominee to prevent another four disastrous years of a second Biden administration.”

Ehrlich said the party must identify and target races it can win.

“There are winnable seats,” he said. “There are a couple of congressional races that are winnable.”

In addition to Andy Harris’ Harford County and Eastern Shore seat that he is favored to win again next year, Republicans have targeted Western Maryland’s 6th Congressional District. Republican Neil Parrott narrowly lost to Democratic Rep. David Trone in 2022 in the state’s most competitive U.S. House race and told The Baltimore Sun on Tuesday he is considering running again. Trone is running for the U.S. Senate, and a host of Democrats — including attorney April McClain Delaney and state Dels. Lesley Lopez and Joe Vogel — are seeking to take his place in the House.

Trump, the leading contender for the GOP nomination, is a deeply unpopular figure in Maryland, in which Democrats have a better than 2-to-1 voter registration advantage.

Ehrlich, who represented the 2nd Congressional District from 1995 to 2003, said divisions among state Republicans over Trump are more about personality than policy.

“I would say that there’s a common factor here that will bring both factions together, which is the Biden record,” Ehrlich said. “The failures of the Biden administration, especially on the economic front, is certainly bringing people together.”

While the state party is hardly abandoning the former president, GOP leaders said the party must focus on Maryland.

“I don’t blame the media for dwelling on Trump. He’s clickbait. He’s as entertaining as he is outrageous,” said Tom Kennedy, chairman of the Baltimore City Republican Central Committee.

But, Kennedy said, “none of that is helpful to me as the city GOP chairman because the more time the media spends on him, the less time they’re talking about real things, like crime rates, a broken public school system, and the kind of deep-seated corruption that only happens in a one-party town.”

While Trump generates enthusiasm among pockets of Republican voters, the party has been losing ground statewide.

In 2020 — the last presidential election year — Democratic voter registration rose 3.8% from January through November, when the election was held. Republican registration rose 2.2%.  

Frederick, Kent and Talbot counties flipped to Democratic in the presidential contest after voting Republican in 2016. The evolving landscape is caused largely by population shifts that are turning once-rural counties into extensions of Democratic-oriented suburbs.

This year, the rate of Marylanders registering as independents has been outpacing those signing up as Republicans. The trend has been evident for at least a few years but is more pronounced today. 

In November — the last month for which figures are available — 9,320 Democrats registered compared to 7,058 independents and 3,337 Republicans.

“Political parties have gotten such a bad rap. People say, ‘I wouldn’t want to be part of that screaming,’” said John T. Willis, a Democrat and former Maryland secretary of state in the administration of Democratic former Gov. Parris Glendening. 

Republicans’ best Maryland strategy may be to keep elections locally focused, Willis said. Overall, the GOP fares better in elections for county executives, commissioners and state’s attorneys than it does statewide.

“They need to focus on issues,” Willis said. “The local elections for county commissioner don’t have anything to do with Trump.”

In overwhelmingly Republican Garrett County, for example, “it doesn’t matter what Trump does. It’s very predictable,” Willis said.

In 2022, the western Maryland county voted for Republican gubernatorial candidate Dan Cox, a Trump loyalist, by a nearly 3-to-1 margin over Democrat Wes Moore, who was elected with 64% of the statewide vote.

Moore succeeded Larry Hogan, the first two-term Republican governor since Theodore McKeldin in the 1950s.

“I’m sure there are some Republicans that thought after having Larry Hogan there for as long as he was, there was this incredible opportunity,” said Roger E. Hartley, dean of the University of Baltimore’s College of Public Affairs. The party’s hope, Hartley said, was “that you could marshal that into a party that could become competitive in statewide races.”

But since Hogan left in January, nobody else has emerged who can “govern from the center and do it really well, and keep all the bases together,” Hartley said.

Nicole Harris, asked by The Sun why Hogan was unable to build on his two terms, drew a distinction between Hogan and Ehrlich.

“When Bob Ehrlich was governor, he prioritized raising money for the party and electing Republicans down ballot,” the party leader said. “Larry Hogan’s priorities were different, but he was successful in becoming the first Republican governor to be reelected in modern history.”

Hogan could not be reached for comment through several former associates and strategists.

Hogan was at odds with Trump long before leaving office. Hogan sometimes contrasted Trump’s style with former Republican President Ronald Reagan’s, suggesting Reagan’s more tempered approach was preferable for the nation because he wasn’t focused on scoring partisan points.

Hogan declined to vote for Trump in 2020, casting a symbolic write-in vote for Reagan, who died in 2004.

Nicole Harris was an alternate delegate to the 2020 Republican National Convention and supported Trump.

“Maryland has about an even number of ‘Trump’ and ‘Hogan’ Republicans. In state and local politics, we’ve called a truce,” said Kennedy, the Baltimore Republican chairman.

“Politics isn’t brain surgery, although some act like it is,” he said. “In Baltimore, it’s about offering commonsense solutions to problems that have apparently mystified the mayor and city council for decades.”

Other Republican leaders, too, said they plan to stress issues close to home.

The upcoming presidential election “will dominate headlines,” said Beth Rettaliata Lawson, the Howard County Republican Party chair.

But she said Republican organizations like hers “will continue to shine light on local issues and advocate for conservative, market-based solutions at the local level.”