Larry Hogan is not *not* running for president

Former Gov. Larry Hogan isn’t running for president … at least not as a Republican.

But on a third-party ticket? The moderate Marylander has “left the door cracked open.” It’s something he’s said could be “worth trying.” And on Sunday, he said thinks that “you’ve gotta run the race to see what it would look like.”

Right now, the co-chair of the centrist political organization No Labels is “focused on getting the Republican Party on track and trying to nominate a good Republican that can do a better job and that can potentially win a race in November,” he told MSNBC’s Jen Psaki during an interview on Sunday.

But he didn’t shut down questions about the possibility that he might eventually join the race.

“I said that if no one wants the Candidate A or Candidate B, maybe there will be a Candidate C,” he said.

Hogan also touted his popularity among voters across the political spectrum.

“I finished my eight years as governor with a 77 percent approval rating. Highest in the country. It was over 70 with Democrats, independents, and Republicans,” Hogan said. “Of course, I’m not well known across the country. But you’ve got to run a race to see what it’s gonna look like.”

Right now, he said, more voters are open to backing a third-party ticket than in previous years. A recent Quinnipiac poll found that 47 percent of voters would consider supporting a third-party candidate.

The potential for a strong third-party ticket has shaken Democrats, who worry that a No Labels-backed bid would hurt President Joe Biden’s reelection chances, and potentially send the current Republican frontrunner, former President Donald Trump, back to the White House.

But Hogan pushed back against that concern on Sunday.

“We have a third party-candidate now,” he said. “The Green Party candidate is pulling about 4 or 5 percent completely away from Biden. So if you want to talk about a spoiler, they should focus in on Cornel West, or they should focus in on the people that are pulling 30 percent of the people away in a primary.”

“No Labels just has an idea that maybe, if we get to this point where nobody in America wants the Republican or Democrat, they might run a ticket. We don’t know who they are. And we don’t know who they would pull from, or whether it would be a Republican or Democrat.”