Annapolis, Md. • America’s most improbably popular governor, a Republican beginning his second term in perhaps the bluest state, resembles a beer keg with an attitude. Stocky and blunt, Larry Hogan, whose job approval is in the high 70s, has won twice in the state with the highest percentage of African-Americans of any state outside the Deep South.
In 2016, Maryland voted more emphatically for Hillary Clinton — by 26 percentage points — than all but three other states. In 2018, Hogan was re-elected receiving a majority of women’s votes, and 28 percent of the African-American vote while running against a former head of the NAACP.