Politics

How Maryland Democrats are thwarting Wes Moore’s political ambitions

Published

4 months ago

February 16, 2026

Maryland Gov. Wes Moore’s national political ambitions could be stymied by Democrats in his own backyard.

The governor’s power play to redraw the state’s congressional lines and snare Democrats a single House seat has earned him accolades from progressive activists and party leaders in Washington, raising his profile as he weighs a 2028 presidential run. But Moore also has been outmaneuvered at times by members of own party, particularly those in the Maryland Senate where his gerrymander blitz is facing an unceremonious death.

The redistricting gambit is one of the first big political tests Moore has faced that has national implications and could elevate him further within the party — or expose weaknesses as he positions himself as a counterweight to President Donald Trump.

Critics say Moore hasn’t been aggressive enough in using bare-knuckle tactics to push through his agenda. Supporters say the first-term governor is focused on redistricting because he sees it as vital to his future national ambitions. Some national Democrats question whether Moore can lead the nation if he fails to bend lawmakers in a solidly blue state with a Democratic-controlled Legislature to enact his policy priorities. Blue Light News spoke to almost two dozen state and federal lawmakers and Democratic strategists for this story.

David Turner, Moore’s senior adviser and communications director, said the governor spearheading Maryland’s redistricting effort is not about furthering his political career.

“Anyone who thinks this is about national ambitions isn’t paying enough attention to the damage being done in 2026,” he said. “The Governor has been clear: at a time when other states are discussing mid-decade redistricting, Maryland needs to as well.”

Moore’s inability to convince enough Maryland Democratic senators to go along with redrawing maps has drawn unfavorable comparisons to California Gov. Gavin Newsom, another likely 2028 White House contender who successfully pushed through a major redistricting effort in his state. After California voters approved the state’s redistricting proposal, Newsom urged other states, including Maryland, to “contribute a verse” in the party’s gerrymandering push.

“If he did kind of match Gavin in terms of that effectiveness, being able to take this issue, win on it and kind of help build his image, I think that would [have been] a great opportunity for him,” said Paul Mitchell of Moore. Mitchell is a redistricting expert and architect of the newly adopted California congressional maps.

Maryland Gov. Wes Moore speaks during a press conference announcing the Protection from Predatory Pricing Act, in Severna Park, Maryland, Jan. 20, 2026.

While Moore championed bills to raise the state’s minimum wage, worked to reduce Baltimore’s homicide rate to near 50-year lows and helped Marylanders cover soaring energy costs, in December, Maryland Democrats overrode at least 16 of the governor’s vetoes — tying his predecessor, GOP Gov. Larry Hogan, for the most he had in a single year during his two terms. That included one override veto over an issue that peeved many Black lawmakers months earlier: Moore’s blockage of the formation of a commission to study reparations in the state.

Weeks after his reparations veto, Moore traveled to an early presidential primary state to deliver the keynote remarks at the South Carolina Democrats Blue Palmetto Dinner, where he said: “Gone are the days when we are the party of bureaucracy, multi-year studies, panels and college debate club rules.”

It is a stark illustration of the criticism that’s followed Moore since he cruised to victory in his first-ever election four years ago: that he’s using the governor’s mansion as a springboard to Washington instead of doing the work of building relationships in Annapolis to get his bills across the finish line.

“Truly, Wes Moore is a great candidate…He has the pizzazz and the swagger that some folks wish they could have,” a Democratic strategist who has worked on state, local and presidential campaigns said and granted anonymity to offer an unvarnished assessment of Moore. “But the operations of his political tentacles are weak. His inside political network is weak.”

Moore addressed some of this criticism head on last week, where the tension was palpable during a joint address of the General Assembly.

“I will not stand here and tell you that I have gotten it all right,” Moore said in his State of the State address Wednesday. “It’s taken time to build relationships. It’s taken time to learn Annapolis. I am an outsider at heart, and I don’t see that changing,” he said before ramping up to a central theme of his remarks – and pressuring Senate Democrats to take up a congressional redistricting bill.

He characterized his months-long public tussle with Maryland Senate President Bill Ferguson as “a very principled disagreement.”

Though the Maryland House of Delegates approved legislation Moore backed to redraw the seat of the state’s lone Republican, House Freedom Caucus chair Rep. Andy Harris, Maryland’s gerrymandering effort is still being blocked in the state Senate.

Ferguson has maintained he will not bring the bill up for a vote, saying there is not enough support for it in his chamber, it’s legally risky and adopting the new maps would jeopardize Maryland’s current 7-1 advantage.

Maryland State Senate President Bill Ferguson addresses the senate chamber during the opening session of the Maryland General Assembly, at the State Capitol in Annapolis, Maryland, Jan. 10, 2024.

Many national Democrats have pressured Ferguson and other holdouts, including former Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries, who in an interview with CNN on Sunday suggested he would travel to Annapolis to meet with Ferguson.

Two Moore aides, granted anonymity to discuss internal strategy, also point out that top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), who previously served in the Maryland Senate, penned a letter to state lawmakers this week calling it a “clear and present danger” not to act. Raskin also sought to undercut Ferguson’s legal justification for not acting, pointing to recent decisions by the U.S. Supreme Court allowing both Texas and California to use their redrawn maps ahead of the midterms. But the Senate leader appears unswayed.

“I think the miscalculation is that a lot of people are being led to believe that it’s only Bill who doesn’t want the map,” said one Maryland Legislative Black Caucus member granted anonymity to discuss internal party dynamics.

Maryland’s Feb. 24 candidate filing deadline is quickly approaching — the date Ferguson and supporters say any changes beyond that date will be too late and overly disruptive to the state elections calendar.

The two Moore aides argued that it is an arbitrary deadline and pointed to legislation working its way through the Maryland House pushing the filing deadline to late March.

A December poll by University of Maryland, Baltimore County found just 27 percent of Maryland residents said redrawing maps was a top issue, signaling affordability and quality education were top of mind.

Maryland-based Democratic strategist Len Foxwell said Moore’s attempts so far to win over voters in the state have been too focused on cable television and podcast appearances, adding the governor’s redistricting push never gained steam because he and his team “botched the rollout so badly.”

Instead of engaging in the kind of aggressive public relations campaign that Newsom launched to sell voters on the need to gerrymander, Moore created an advisory commission to solicit public input. Its meetings were held virtually and typically at odd hours, with most proceedings taking place late on Friday afternoons. The outcome of whether the commission was going to recommend new maps was never in doubt.

“The work of the commission was a rather dreary exercise in muscle-flexing,” Foxwell said. “The clear message was that we are doing this because we can do it. And I don’t think that was a message that was satisfying.”

Moore hasn’t deployed scorched-earth tactics against Ferguson, unlike the kind Trump encouraged where he threatened to primary Indiana Republicanswho wouldn’t support his attempt to gerrymander in the Hoosier state. Indiana Senate Republicans ultimately blocked Trump’s push.

Jeffries, who could become the nation’s first Black speaker should Democrats take back the U.S. House this fall, said during a hastily arranged press conference in the U.S. Capitol in late January that Marylanders “deserve an up or down vote.” Moore, standing shoulder-to-shoulder with Jeffries, looked on as the Democratic congressional leader directed his disdain toward Ferguson, though he never named him.

Behind the scenes, Jeffries and other top Democrats backing Moore are working around Ferguson by leaning on the Black Caucus to force a rarely-used state Senate procedure to discharge the redistricting bill out of the chamber’s Rules Committee. If it’s successful it will force a floor vote on the House-passed bill. But just one member of the Black Caucus is openly supporting that tactic and the prevailing thought is the legislation will sit in purgatory until the General Assembly session ends in April.

The Maryland Legislative Black Caucus member added that while Moore is seen as a rising Democratic star on the national stage, there is work to be done by the governor in Annapolis.

“I think it’s that his folks are trying to insulate him from some things,” the lawmaker continued. “Because if he starts to have those relationships, then he’s going to start to hear that some of these ideas that he has are not necessarily the best, and that becomes a problem for some of his national aspirations.”

Politics

Wes Moore lays out his vision for America

Published

14 minutes ago

June 26, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Maryland Gov. Wes Moore is on an Independence Day collision course with President Donald Trump.

Moore is planning to deliver a sweeping speech on patriotism on July Fourth from the Maryland State House in Annapolis — with the aim of counterprogramming what Trump promised would be the “most spectacular TRUMP RALLY of them all, a ‘TRIBUTE TO AMERICA.’”

In an interview with Blue Light News, Moore said he thinks Trump is going to spend the 250th anniversary of the nation’s founding talking about himself — but that America deserves something more.

“The president is incapable of meeting the moment,” Moore said.

In his split-screen remarks, called “The Work of Patriotism,” the former Army captain and Afghanistan veteran is expected to “make the case that Democrats cannot cede patriotism to Donald Trump — and that love of country is not about loyalty to one man, one party, or one political spectacle,” according to Ammar Moussa, Moore’s press secretary.

Moore will “draw a contrast between patriotism and nationalism, making the case that nationalism is about allegiance to a person or a movement, while patriotism is about allegiance to the country and the people who make it worth fighting for,” Moussa said.

“We are a nation of strength because we are a nation of sacrifice,” Moore will say, according to a draft of his remarks.

But Moore insisted he’s not trying to be a foil to the president.

“I’m trying to be a foil to darkness,” Moore said. “I think I’m trying to be a foil to fatalism. I think I’m trying to be a foil to self-serving ideologies. What I want people to know in all this is that I believe strongly that we need a future-facing vision for this nation.”

That’s exactly what someone who’s “not running” for president would say, right? Standard Maryland gubernatorial reelection fare.

The speech follows a pattern of growing visibility for Moore. He’s been on numerous podcasts and in new media. The day after his speech, he’s expected to appear on an episode of Jubilee’s “Surrounded,” a booking that’s becoming routine for prominent Democratic figures such as Pete Buttigieg, Texas Senate candidate James Talarico and Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.).

On Saturday, Moore is heading to battleground Michigan, a potential early 2028 primary state, where he’ll stump for gubernatorial candidate Jocelyn Benson in Detroit, Saginaw and Flint — all pivotal locales to win reelection in Maryland, of course.

Moore has said he’s “laser-focused” on his 2026 reelection campaign. Or, as he explained in an interview with POLITICO’s Jonathan Martin: “I’m hungry, but I’m not thirsty.”

The Maryland governor also had his own thoughts about what the progressive victories in New York’s primaries mean, and how that insurgent energy could be harnessed by 2028 Democrats.

“I think harnessing the energy means driving for the results that people are aspiring to,” Moore said, citing primary wins in his own backyard too: “I created an entire slate, the Leave No One Behind slate in Maryland that was wildly successful, and if you look at the candidates that I endorsed and supported, you can’t find an ideological thread in them. We endorsed the progressive legislator from Montgomery County, and we supported the prosecutor in Baltimore County.”

In fact, Moore endorsed some 200 candidates across the state, and his advisers say 93 percent have either won or are in the lead.

“What connects them is a belief that the status quo has got to be disrupted,” Moore said.

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