Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan says he voted for Ronald Reagan this year

Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan (R) says he voted for Ronald Reagan — not in 1980, but in 2020.

The Republican governor on Friday revealed to The Washington Post that rather than voting for either President Trump or former Vice President Joe Biden in this year's election, he has cast a write-in vote for former President Reagan.

"I know it's simply symbolic," Hogan told the 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."

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

In 2016, Hogan also didn't vote for either of the two major candidates, instead writing in his father, former congressmember Larry Hogan Sr. At the time, a Hogan spokesperson said he was "extremely disappointed in the candidates from both major parties" and decided to write in the "person who taught him what it meant to hold public office with integrity."

Hogan since then has criticized Trump and in July wrote a scathing op-ed blasting the president's COVID-19 response, saying that the United States "ended up with such a patchwork response" to the pandemic after it became clear to governors that "waiting around for the president to run the nation's response was hopeless."

As far as who he picked for his write-in vote this year, Hogan told the Post that Reagan is "my hero in politics," adding, "Reagan was the guy. I marched around as a college kid on the floor of the convention with a Reagan hat and a Reagan sign."