The former Wyoming congresswoman Liz Cheney “hopes to be able to rebuild” the Republican party after Donald Trump leaves the political stage. Mitt Romney, the retiring Utah senator and former presidential nominee, reportedly hopes so too.
Among other prominent Republicans who refuse to bow the knee, the former Maryland governor Larry Hogan is running for a US Senate seat in a party led by Trump but insists he can be part of a post-Trump GOP.
Michael Steele, the former Republican National Committee chair turned MSNBC host, advocated more dramatic action: “We have to blow this crazy-ass party up and have it regain its senses, or something else will be born out of it. There are only two options here. Hogan will be a key player in whatever happens. Liz Cheney, [former congressmen] Adam Kinzinger and Joe Walsh – all of us who have been pushed aside and fortunately were not infected with Maga, we will have something to say about what happens on 6 November.”
The current governor of Vermont is a Republican. Vermont tends to vote for the person rather than the party.
And MA has also had Republican governors in recent history, yet both are always among the highest % voting Democratic in presidential/congressional elections with Democratic supermajorities in their state houses.
Governors in New England are often a weird exception and are sometimes linked to poor turnout. That does not mean either state would have more of an appetite for a centrist party. Such a party would probably take more Republican votes than Democratic.