Wes Moore, an author endorsed by Oprah Winfrey, has won the Maryland Democratic gubernatorial nomination in the party’s bid to regain control of the Old Line State’s governor’s mansion.
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CNN, NBC, and other outlets called the contest for Moore on Friday, three days after the Maryland Democratic gubernatorial primary.
The general election race will be one of the Democrats’ best opportunities to flip control of a gubernatorial seat, as the state’s incumbent Republican Gov. Larry Hogan, one of a trio of popular Republican governors of blue states, is term-limited.
Democrats outnumber Republicans in Maryland by a 2-1 ratio, but the GOP has won three of the last five gubernatorial elections in the state. In 2018, Hogan became only the second Republican governor to win reelection in state history.
In addition to Moore, the crowded Democratic field included former Labor Secretary Tom Perez, who was previously chairman of the Democratic National Committee and a top Justice Department official; former Education Secretary John King; Comptroller Peter Franchot; former Obama White House official Ashwani Jain; and former state Attorney General Doug Gansler.
Recent polling of the race showed a tight contest with no clear front-runner.
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Moore rose to fame in recent years as the author of The Other Wes Moore and The Work, both of which are New York Times bestsellers. Moore was also the host for Beyond Belief on the Oprah Winfrey Network, as well as executive producer and a writer for Coming Back with Wes Moore on PBS.
Moore is a graduate of Johns Hopkins University and a Rhodes scholar. Moore went on to serve as a captain and paratrooper with the U.S. Army’s 82nd Airborne, including leading soldiers in combat in Afghanistan. He later worked on Wall Street and for four years headed the Robin Hood Foundation, distributing over $600 million toward lifting families out of poverty,
Moore in November will face state Del. Dan Cox, who emerged as the winner of a Republican primary that was a proxy war between Hogan and former President Donald Trump. Cox, endorsed by the former president, beat Hogan’s hand-picked candidate in Tuesday’s primary. But the staunchly conservative lawmaker faces an uphill battle against Moore in the deep blue state.
