Whenever I think of Larry Hogan, my mind instantly goes to John Bel Edwards.
That’s because Hogan, the former Republican governor of deep-blue Maryland, and Edwards, the Democratic ex-governor of ruby-red Louisiana, both dealt with legislatures controlled by rival political parties. Both governed from the pragmatic center to get important things done, and both left office with their good reputations intact.
Hogan is back in the news these days because he’s trying to leverage that good reputation into a U.S. Senate seat. Despite his enduring popularity and his Democratic opponent’s much lower profile, he's struggling.
The Democratic voters who comprise Maryland’s majority may appreciate Hogan, but most deplore the national Republican agenda and former President Donald Trump. Hogan is an anti-Trumper, but flipping the open seat from D to R could give Republicans control of the Senate, which would overwhelm Hogan's moderate instincts regardless of who wins the presidency.
More than ever, Senate contests are national party referenda these days, full stop. That's why Edwards, despite earned respect and goodwill, would stand little chance if he were to run for the Senate in 2026. It’s not even clear he could be elected governor again, given how the cultural tide of divisive national politics often swamps state-level politics nowadays.
Exhibit A: Edwards’ successor, Gov. Jeff Landry, who's making moves that are eerily — and scarily — familiar.
Landry would fit right in at the Senate, where even a former Democrat like John Neely Kennedy has morphed into a GOP sound bite machine. The hard-right culture warrior Kennedy portrays is who Landry actually is.
Louisiana voters seem content with sending ideologues to Washington, but I think the jury is still out on whether they want that approach to governance closer to home.
Former Gov. Bobby Jindal learned that lesson the hard way. He finished his two terms in office as one of the nation's least popular governors, and crashed and burned as a presidential candidate.
If he's not careful, Landry could be headed down the same path.
He mostly got what he wanted from the GOP's supermajority, but a quick check-in after his first legislative sessions doesn’t convince me that Louisiana is ready to go full national, politically speaking.
Yes, much of what Landry did has general popular support. He also encountered depressingly limited legislative pushback on issues where his goals veered far outside the mainstream, according to polling for The Times-Picayune and The Advocate. The new law allowing people 18 and older to carry concealed firearms without permits or training — something Edwards had wisely vetoed — is on that second list.
But some initiatives did draw opposition, and they were telling.
One was the showdown over Landry’s initial decision to reject federal money for a summer feeding program for kids who qualify for free school lunches. The administration’s initial rationale oozed right-wing code, citing “strings” attached to federal money and the need for “a pathway to self-sufficiency,” as if not feeding poor, hungry kids somehow builds character.
If such comments were expected from Landry, the coalition of Republican and Democratic lawmakers that forced him to reverse course was not. Lawmakers said their constituents — including, notably, grocers whose businesses would benefit — didn’t get why the state would reject this money. Team Landry's predictable rhetoric provided no answers to that simple question.
Similarly, I wonder what the reaction will be to Landry’s vetoes of money for community needs in places like Lafayette, where he zeroed out $1 million for a Catholic Charities homeless shelter that lawmakers voted overwhelmingly to fund.
Landry's explanation, that Catholic Charities supports immigrants, gave the game away: He's trained his attention on the national fight over immigration — even though his state has no international border — as we saw when he made a big show of sending Louisiana National Guard members off to Texas.
The new mandate that the Ten Commandments be posted in classrooms is another Landry bid to be part of the national conversation. The governor said he welcomed a lawsuit challenging it, and he got one soon after he signed the bill. The suit could well reach the U.S. Supreme Court — and make Landry a household name among those who reject the First Amendment’s clear call for separation of church and state.
Landry responded in predictable fashion, embarking on something of a victory tour.
If that's the kind of win Landry wants, it won't get him to that sweet spot where he’s addressing concerns that directly impact Louisiana’s communities — and maintaining high voter-approval numbers.
Unlike senators, that’s what successful governors do, even in these horribly divided times.