Democratic front-runners Tom Perez, Wes Moore and Peter V.R. Franchot are polling neck-and-neck among decided voters, as are Republicans Kelly M. Schulz and Daniel L. Cox.
Tom Perez paced the banquet room in a suburban seafood restaurant like the trial lawyer he once was, building the case Maryland has been “punching below our weight” on the issues that matter to Democrats.“Our democracy is on fire right now,” Perez, 60, said as about two dozen Democrats dined on crab cakes and listened as he campaigned to be the next governor. “The one thing we can’t do in this moment is cower in the corner. We have to stand up and fight.
And despite his deep DNC Rolodex, the party’s heavy hitters have not campaigned in Maryland to press the case for his primary victory — with the notable exception of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi , who is from Baltimore and has ties to the state. In 1974, when Perez was 12, his father died of a heart attack. The trauma shaped him. It also fostered what he calls a “surrogate father” relationship with his best friend’s dad, a Teamster who introduced Perez to the power of labor unions, which today have lined up in force behind his bid.
“My sincere hope after we succeed for eight years in Maryland is to able to be, hopefully, a good grandfather by that point,” he said.“We have an unbelievable opportunity right now to multitask because we’re never going to have this kind of money from the federal government again in my lifetime,” he said. “I also firmly believe that given the number of really serious challenges, we need a leader who’s both a dreamer and a doer.
But Perez says in the way that matters, he was successful: when he took over, Republicans held the White House and both chambers of Congress, but when he left, Democrats were in control across the board.Perez has taken up local officials’ offers to tour legislative districts, winning over some legislators he just met, such as Del. Robbyn T. Lewis .
While U.S. labor secretary, Perez pushed through a new overtime rule that nearly doubled the threshold of workers required to be paid overtime, extending extra pay to an estimated 4 million workers and drawing praise from labor unions. He’s not afraid to make enemies within his own party, as he did with Thomas V. Mike Miller when Miller was president of the Senate. Or friends within the opposing party, as he did with Gov. Larry Hogan .
True to his populist bent, Franchot has said he represents “the little fellers, not the Rockefellers,” though his own upbringing was one of affluence. He grew up in New England, the son of a corporate lawyer, and attended Phillips Academy in Andover, Mass., one of the nation’s most elite prep schools.
The next year, he ran to become his district’s Democratic nominee for U.S. House of Representatives, and he won that too. Foxwell said Franchot was guided more by political expedience than any set of principles. He cited as an example Franchot’s pivot to oppose slot machines — after co-sponsoring efforts to legalize them in 1998 and 2001 — when Foxwell advised the stance would help him stand out in opposition to Ehrlich and appeal to Black voters and White progressives.
Franchot casts his opposition to slots differently, as an outgrowth of his affinity for facing bullies and taking up for the little guy, but acknowledges changing his position. “A lot of these issues are not necessarily popular issues that I step in on,” he said in a recent interview. “Slot machines — everybody wanted slot machines.”
From the time he took office, Franchot took a broad approach to the role, which helps oversee state spending but is essentially the state tax collector, expanding his reach and carving out a more public profile than was traditional for the position. The day he was sworn in, Franchot made clear he would loudly oppose slots.
After Hogan, the Republican gubernatorial nominee, managed an upset win that year, he was quickly befriended by Franchot, with whom he shared many voters. They bonded over strolls along the Ocean City boardwalk and a mutual desire to curb state spending. Franchot dined at the governor’s mansion, something he’d never done with O’Malley.
“What I saw was the same thing I was looking for when I was going through South Africa, building my school. … I was looking for in that space, girls who had it. And I knew it when I saw it,” she said. “It was hard to define to the teachers and the principals what that it thing was, but it’s a level of inner vibrational energy that comes straight out of the authenticity of one’s soul.
Fresh polls show the political newcomer toe to toe with established candidates such as Peter Franchot, a state comptroller who has held elected office almost as long as Moore has been alive, and Tom Perez, a former U.S. labor secretary who is entrenched in national party politics. Moore has consolidated support from the state’s heavy hitters, including U.S. House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer, state Senate President Bill Ferguson, House Speaker Adrienne A.
Winfrey, whose advice he sought about running and who recently appeared at a virtual fundraiser to boost his campaign, asked Moore during the event about a widely circulated myth that he was born in Baltimore. A decade ago, even Oprah introduced him incorrectly. And later, so did Stephen Colbert, Princeton University and a curriculum teaching his book to K-12 students, among others.
I “didn’t see the need … to call every reporter or every producer out. … It wasn’t some thread where I was like, ‘Let me ride this out,’” Moore said in a recent interview, maintaining that the city helped shape him and that he has what it takes to succeed term-limited Gov. Larry Hogan . “I asked Wes about that,” Hoyer told reporters who asked about the Bronze Star. “And I am absolutely convinced that Wes has told the truth on all of these matters.”“I have nothing to exaggerate about my life,” he said.
Moore acknowledges that there are candidates in the governor’s race with more political experience and greater name recognition than he has but said that doesn’t mean they are suited to lead in this moment. “People are looking for someone who has worked across sectors to get big things done,” he said. “Right now, people are not necessarily looking for the same people with the same ideas. They want us to be bold. They want Maryland to do big things.”
“We need the private sector, we need nonprofit organizations, we need philanthropy,” he said. “We need executive and legislative leadership. We need the people. And that’s the approach that I know that I’m going to take in terms of how we get this done on Day One.”Once a troubled teen expelled from high school, John B. King Jr. knows what it’s like to be scolded.
The former U.S. education secretary under President Barack Obama, who has held numerous political appointments, has spent years around politicians but has never been elected to public office. King supports a bold, progressive agenda that includes universal, affordable child care and ending the state’s reliance on fossil fuels, pledging 100 percent clean energy use in all Maryland public buildings by 2030.
King said he decided to launch his first political campaign after a career in public service because he saw the inequities exposed by the coronavirus pandemic and viewed it as a “New Deal moment” where the state could confront deeper systemic challenges. “As I think about public policy, I’m very conscious that I was lucky, you know, and I say to folks, my story is not about me being special. It’s about the special people and institutions that intervened in my life that made it possible for me to have the opportunities that I’ve had,” he said.
“John is one of the most thoughtful, committed public servants I know,” said Arne Duncan, who was King’s predecessor as education secretary. Duncan, who left his post in the Obama cabinet early, said he remembered the White House asking him for 10 names of candidates to fill his position. “I was thinking I could give you 20 names, but there’s only one person you should hire and it’s John,” he said.
He made it the focus of his first ad, where he introduced himself to voters earlier this year. In it, he says the gaps in health, wealth and criminal justice in America are tied to the history of slavery, segregation and redlining. He shares his own story of having ancestors who were enslaved in a cabin less than 25 miles from his home in Montgomery County.
With just over $1 million on hand as of June and weeks remaining until the primary, Gansler leans into his record as attorney general to distinguish himself as all Democratic candidates in this blue state that elected a Republican governor twice in eight years struggle to break through. When he competed with then-Lt. Gov. Anthony G. Brown and then-Del. Heather Mizeur for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination in 2014, Gansler was initially considered an early favorite.
While serving as Montgomery County state’s attorney, he garnered national attention for high-profile prosecutions like boxer Mike Tyson’s road-rage attack in Gaithersburg in 1998 and the Washington-area sniper shootings in 2002. On a recent Friday afternoon, beading sweat in temperatures reaching the high 90s, Gansler addressed a small group of volunteers that would be helping knocking on doors and handing out fliers in his childhood neighborhood.
But whether she can walk the same tightrope that Hogan did over two terms — winning over Independents and moderate Democrats without alienating the state’s Republican base — remains to be seen, observers say. While Hogan has been an outspoken Trump critic, Schulz cannot afford at this point to sideline supporters of the former president, Laird said. In the primary, where turnout tends to be higher among more ideological voters, she faces three opponents, including Maryland Del. Daniel L. Cox , a Trump-endorsed, staunchly conservative lawmaker also from Frederick.
“I enjoyed working with Kelly,” said Dereck E. Davis, Maryland’s state treasurer and a former Democratic House delegate who chaired the Economic Matters Committee when Schulz was a member. “We didn’t always agree on what was an impediment to business versus what was prudent regulation, but she respected the fact that not everybody shared her viewpoint.”
Schulz has largely tried so far to stay above the fray of the fissures that have divided her party on a national level, rarely even mentioning Cox by name. Instead, she has sought to draw attention to issues with more bipartisan support, promising to expand school choice, repeal a state tax that pegs gas taxes to inflation and “treat criminals like criminals.
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