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. POLITICO 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.
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.
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.”
