Republican Larry Hogan campaigned for Maryland governor as a successful businessman and political outsider in a state capital dominated by Democrats. But he has spent much of his life on the fringes of political power.
Hogan, 58, served as appointments secretary in the cabinet of Maryland’s last Republican governor, Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. Decades ago, he worked on the political campaigns of and as a staffer to his father, a former three-term congressman from Maryland and Prince George’s County executive.
On Tuesday night, Hogan stunned the Democratic establishment by defeating Lt. Gov. Anthony G. Brown, a law school classmate of President Obama and outgoing Gov. Martin O’Malley’s handpicked protégé.
He campaigned relentlessly on a promise to roll back as many as possible of the tax increases passed during O’Malley’s eight years in office — 40 tax hikes in all, according to Hogan’s tally.
And he promised to improve Maryland’s business climate, and bring more jobs to the state, in part by trying to trim the corporate tax rate in the state to more closely match Virginia’s.
On the campaign trail, he came across as a happy warrior, playing arcade games on the Ocean City boardwalk, trying ballroom dance at a senior citizens’ complex and pondering the choices at a Catonsville candy store.
Hogan owns an eponymous real estate firm in Anne Arundel County that specializes in land deals and commercial brokerage, but it also dabbles in residential sales and manages developments elsewhere in the state. He has been married for 10 years to the former Yumi Kim, a South Korean-born artist he met at an exhibit. It was his first marriage and the second for his wife, who has three grown daughters. One daughter appeared in a Hogan campaign ad, rebutting Democrats’ contentions that her stepfather has a social agenda that is hostile to women.