Maryland Gov. Wes Moore stumps for Roy Cooper, voting rights

MARYLAND GOVERNOR'S OFFICE

Maryland Gov. Wes Moore is a rising star in Democratic politics and using his platform to campaign for candidates like former North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper, who is campaigning for the state’s open U.S. Senate seat. Moore, 47, is also considered a potential 2028 presidential candidate.

Maryland Gov. Wes Moore is running for re-election, but his profile is national.

Moore, the first Black chief executive in that state’s history, is often mentioned as a potential contender for the 2028 Democratic presidential nomination. As a result, he’s a hot commodity as a speaker, and spent a couple of days in Charlotte as commencement speaker at Johnson C. Smith University and campaign appearances with U.S. Senate candidate Roy Cooper, North Carolina’s former governor. 

Moore, a former Army lieutenant and Bronze Star recipient as well as a Rhodes Scholar who is in his first term as governor, has not committed to running for president, but the question persists.

In an interview with The Post, Moore, 47, talked about campaigning for Cooper, mid-decade redistricting and voter suppression in the South as well as White House aspirations. Responses are edited for clarity and brevity. 

TCP: You had commencement at Johnson C. Smith University, and some campaigning with Senate candidate Roy Cooper. What was that like? 

WM: I'm excited to campaign for (Cooper), because I know it’s not just that North Carolina needs him, this country needs his leadership, this country needs his morals, and this country needs a fighter. He’s someone who has shown what that fight looks like for years in statewide office of North Carolina, and he's someone who I think the country’s going to need at the same time, especially right now. 
We’re watching this type of assault that is taking place on all our values and basic rights, where in Washington the federal administration is just seemingly unchecked.”

TCP: There’s a lot of whiplash going on in national politics that’s seeped to the local level, where everything now is about Washington, even for city councils and state governments. What is your sense around the country? 

WM: There’s a reason that people are focusing on Washington, because Washington seems to be focusing on making life harder on us. You know that when you’re looking at everything from rising grocery prices to rising energy prices to the fact that gas prices have gone up over $1.50 in the past 10 months. It’s not lost on any of us that the policies that we are seeing coming out of Washington, D.C. are making life harder for each and every one of us, and so that’s why I think being able to put different, more sensible people in Washington – people who are moral, people who are fighting for. Why [is] the governor of Maryland in North Carolina? Because what happens in North Carolina is going to impact the entire country.

TCP: We’re in uncharted territory with a Supreme Court that now allows states to redraw legislative maps at will to gain a competitive advantage. What will it mean to communities of color who now, depending on where you live, may not have the ability to vote for the candidate of their choice?

WM: It’s deeply frustrating because I’m a big believer in national redistricting reform. I think that Congress needs to do its job and actually do larger redistricting reform. I also don’t believe that right now we’re watching a federal administration trying to steal an election in broad daylight, that we’re watching a federal administration deciding which states, which hand-picked states should choose to go through the decade resisting and which ones should not, and I think that is deeply dangerous. 

While I believe in federal and national redistricting reform, I also believe that every state that has the chance to be able to examine their maps to be able to counter this theft of democracy that we’re seeing in this political redlining that is specifically impacting communities of color.

Every state that can should be able to look at and examine what their maps are actually representative of their body, so these are all things that I think, not just for the state of Maryland (where a redistricting effort failed in the legislature), but as these other states are making these moves, I don’t see why Maryland has to stay out of that conversation.

TCP: We’re a couple of years away from the presidential election cycle. Your name has been mentioned as a possible contender.

WM: I think anyone who has ever known me or working me knows that I’m a pretty mission-driven person, and right now my mission is clear. My mission is we have (a gubernatorial) election in November that I’m taking very, very seriously. Three, three-and-a-half years ago, the people of Maryland gave me the honor of making me the 63rd governor of the state of Maryland, and I’ve been really proud of the work that we’ve done, and I’ve been really proud of the impact that (I’ve been) able to make, and the fact that the nation is taking notice to it. I also know that my mission continues, and I’m very clear about what the task at hand is, and that's really where all my focus is.

TCP: There is that larger constituency of an entire country that could be considered.

WM: Part of the reason that I’m going to spend time campaigning in other states is because I believe that leadership does matter, that leadership matters in this area, and that includes people who are running for governor in other states. That includes members of the House of Representatives and the Senate, and that we all have a unique responsibility for it. … 

I was at Johnson C. Smith, where I had a chance to talk to the students, and I reminded them that Johnson C. Smith, for example, was built for a moment like this, that it was built during Reconstruction when the country was on the brink of deciding what type of country it wanted to be, and it was Johnson C. Smith students who really helped to bring the country to, as it said in Psalm 61:2, a ‘rock that’s higher than I.’

I think that it’s important that we all understand our unique responsibility inside this moment as well, that we don’t have the luxury of sitting on the sidelines.

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