Maryland Gov. Votes for a Dead President

Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan says he has already cast his ballot in the 2020 election. His choice for president: Ronald Reagan. "I know it's simply symbolic," he tells the Washington Post. "It's not going to change the outcome in my state. But I thought it was important to just cast a vote that showed the kind of person I'd like to see in office." Hogan, a political moderate and critic of President Trump, is allying with other "pragmatic" Republicans across the country as he eyes a possible 2024 presidential bid. He's also in a state where Trump isn't exactly surging in popularity: A Goucher College Poll puts Joe Biden ahead by 61% to 30%, per the Baltimore Sun.

Hogan considers Reagan a political hero going back to 1976, when Hogan backed Reagan's failed attempt to challenge President Gerald Ford in the primary. Hogan later became chair of Youth for Reagan and was a delegate for the 1980 GOP convention, when Reagan snagged the nomination. "The way Reagan spoke, his positive worldview, how he seemed to care about people, his willingness to reach across the aisle—I had found my kind of Republican," the 64-year-old wrote in his political memoir, Still Standing. "Those ideas really connected with me." Hogan believes he can help in "reshaping" the GOP after Trump and moving the party back to fiscal conservatism, per Fox News. (More Election 2020 stories.)