There could be further developments related to a revealing story published by Time Magazine, claiming that decisions made by former Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan while he was in office improperly benefited clients of his Annapolis real estate brokerage firm.
“I think Hogan was legitimately quite surprised to have had this drop right at the minute that it did,” said Ian Anson, a political science professor at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County.
The article was published on Thursday, just hours before the first and only debate in Maryland’s U.S. Senate race, in which Hogan, a Republican, is running against Democratic candidate Angela Alsobrooks.
“Over Hogan’s eight years in office, nearly 40% of the competitive affordable housing awards overseen by the governor went to developers listed as clients,” TIME reported.
The article detailed how Hogan, while serving as Maryland’s governor, voted five times as a member of the State Board of Public Works — an administrative body that determines how taxpayer money gets spent — to issue loans or grants to developers who were listed as clients of his real estate brokerage firm.
“I’ve already seen on social media and other news reports that members of the House of Delegates and other folks in the state are following up on this,” Anson said. “That, to me, signals that this might not be a flash in the pan.”
No one talked about the story during Thursday’s debate, but it did come up as Hogan spoke to reporters later.
Hogan called it “completely false” and “politics as usual.”
“There’s no truth to it at all,” said Hogan. “This is what they call an ‘October surprise,’ where they dredge up some old false conspiracy theory and throw it out there and then try to make it into a campaign issue.”
A spokesman for Hogan said he did nothing wrong and signed a trust agreement when he first went into office to put his brother in charge of the company, but the arrangement was not a blind trust and allowed him to keep up to date on the firm’s business dealings.
“Whether that will have a real impact on the race itself, I’m not sure, but I do think that it actually signals something serious that he’s going to have to think about in the near future, regardless of whether or not he wins the Senate,” said Anson.
Hogan and Alsobrooks are running to succeed Democratic Sen. Ben Cardin, who is retiring.
The race is getting national attention because it is unusually competitive this year in a deeply blue state where its outcome could determine whether Democrats or Republicans get control of the Senate.
Democrats currently hold a 51-49 Senate advantage, including independent senators who caucus with Democrats. And Democrats have to defend 23 seats out of the 33 Senate seats on the ballot around the country this November.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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