Hogan hasn’t officially launched his re-election bid, but next year’s campaign has clearly been on his mind for a long, long time. He’s explicitly talked about his second term and been aggressively raising money to achieve it.
In the same BWI Marriott ballroom a week apart in June, he gave speeches that were a preview of that re-election campaign.
First, Hogan touted his record to a packed house of close to 700 business people for the annual luncheon of Maryland Business for Responsive Government.
The following week, he addressed the not-quite-so-packed annual Red White and Blue dinner for the state Republican Party, an event Hogan has skipped a couple of times.
Democrats and pundits have argued that Hogan has actually been running for reelection for many months, with every public step calculated with an eye to 2018.
