CAMBRIDGE — U.S. Senate candidate and former Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan walked the aisles of Simmons Center Market in Cambridge last Wednesday afternoon, perusing meats and cheeses and checking out the old the antique cash registers that lined the top row of one of the market’s shelves.
Walking the aisles with him were market owner and Dorchester County Councilman Ricky Travers, and County Council Vice President Mike Detmer. Both Travers, a Democrat, and Detmer, a Republican, endorsed Hogan from their respective sides of the aisle for the state’s open U.S. Senate seat that day.
Hogan, who won the Republican primary for the open seat earlier this month, will face Prince George’s County Executive Angela Alsobrooks in the general election in November.
In an interview with the Star Democrat, Hogan called being endorsed by both Democrat and Republican members of the County Council “a special moment.”
“This is especially nice because it’s a bipartisan thing,” he said. “I’ve always been somebody that reaches across the aisle and tries to find consensus and tries to get things done with Republicans and Democrats working together.”
Detmer said in an interview that on the County Council, he and Travers work together to find the “practical, pragmatic, best path forward” for Dorchester County residents.
“And I think (the endorsements) reflect that Councilman Travers and I both see Gov. Hogan as the pragmatic, practical choice to send to the Senate,” he said.
For Travers, it’s not about Democrat or Republican when it comes to the senate seat.
“It’s about who’s the best person for the job,” he said in an interview. “That’s the bottom line.”
Travers said he is endorsing Hogan because of Hogan’s track record as governor.
“He did a great job for us when he was governor,” Travers said. “(I) had a great working relationship with him. And he was very amenable to working with rural Maryland.”
Hogan said when he was governor, he kept his promise of paying more attention to the Eastern Shore than the governors before him did.
“We work so well with all of the county and the municipal governments all over the Shore,” he said.
Although Robin Ficker received the most votes in Dorchester County in the U.S. Senate Republican Primary earlier this month with 52.8% of the vote, Hogan said that doesn’t matter.
“We want to do whatever we can to convince them that this is an important election,” he said about Dorchester County residents. “And it doesn’t matter what they did during the primary, we need their vote in the general election.”
Hogan said his campaign has a lot of support in Dorchester County.
“And I’m expecting we’re going to win this really big in November,” he said.
Simmons Center Market was just one of the stops on Hogan’s visit to the Eastern Shore on Wednesday. He started the day at Patriot Point in Madison and then stopped at the Woolford Store before heading to Cambridge to visit the market.
Next up, Hogan said he was headed to Ocean City to meet with the Ocean City Career Firefighter Paramedics Association and the Worcester County Professional Firefighters. Both groups are endorsing Hogan in the election. In the evening, he said he had plans to deliver a speech at Stephen Decatur High School’s graduation ceremony.
“I’m sure all the graduating kids don’t really care what I have to say, they’re just waiting to get their diplomas,” he joked. “But I’ll get to congratulate some graduates.”
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