Maryland Gov. Wes Moore discusses reelection victory

We started this journey with no institutional backing, but with a couple of just big and audacious goals that we wanted to rethink the way the Maryland Democratic Party moves, that it wasn't just about engaging. It was about enlarging that we wanted to make sure that that representation does matter. And we wanted to ensure that we could have candidates that really reflected the beautiful diversity of our state and our country, and that we wanted to make Maryland a different part of the conversation. And I think when you look at what happened last night, the fact that, you know, we invested to make sure that we had county executives, that historic county executives, and endorsed early for some of them when people thought they had no chance of winning. And I was proud to see Will Jawando and Vanessa Atterbury and Julian Jones give their acceptance speeches last night, that we said that I want to be the last person to ever say that I'm the only black governor in this country. And we worked to make sure that we could have chief executives around the country that really reflected the progress of this country. And I was very proud to see Keisha Lance Bottoms give her victory speech last night. Very proud to see David Crowley give his victory speech last night. And hopefully we are days, if not hours, away from watching Aaron Ford give his over in Nevada. And we said that we were going to make sure that Maryland would meet the moment. And, you know, despite the two weeks ago, everybody said that question three was done and question three was over. I am very proud to say that in a loud and resounding fashion, question three passed in Maryland. And and we made sure that that Maryland could help to meet the moment in this time. And so I would I'll say that the days of having a governor with no coattails, those days are over. And so I'll take your questions. Yep. Before, when I asked you, I couldn't speak. Well, I'm ready to engage the members of the General Assembly, because one thing that I am very clear about, and I think the people of Maryland are very clear about, is that Donald Trump is not done. He has already been very clear about his intention to go after additional states, to go after places like Mississippi and South Carolina and Indiana. And so I want to be clear then that the courts have spoken, the people of Maryland have spoken, and it is time to make sure that Maryland does meet this moment. And so I'm looking forward to engaging the members of the General Assembly, but my position on making sure that Maryland meets this moment, my position has not changed and it will not change. Yeah, my commitment is we are going to make sure that we are addressing affordability in the state of Maryland. But we are going to make sure that in every way that we can, we will address affordability inside of the state of Maryland. And we have now gone four straight years where we have a balanced budget inside of the state of Maryland. If you look at what's happened during my time as governor, we have given the middle class a tax cut. We've given military veterans a tax cut. And I believe that you can both invest in the future and also be fiscally disciplined. And I think that's what we've been able to demonstrate. That's what we will continue to demonstrate. And I look forward to working with the members of the General Assembly that the structural deficit that I inherited, and that, frankly, has been around the state for the past 20 years, that we've got to address the fact that Maryland needs to ensure we have fiscal discipline while also still investing in the future. I want to follow up on Ray Victor's point. I just want to follow up on Ray Victor's point. Raise your hands and I'll call on folks. Christine. Well, I think the message to the entire General Assembly is I'm ready to work together and engage because we are very clear that Donald Trump is not stopping. And Donald, and again, don't take my word for it. Take his. Take James Blair. Take Stephen Miller. They are not done. And so I think it's important that Maryland continues to meet this moment. I look forward to working with the members of the General Assembly to ensure that we hear loud and clear what the people of Maryland have said. We hear loud and clear what the courts have said. And that I think we need to make sure that we are meeting this moment and my position on that is not going to change. Well, I think that any proposed map needs to be a map that is going to be a fair and representative map. And to be clear, I do not like partisan gerrymandering. And I think there needs to be national redistricting reform inside of this country. I also know that I'm not holding my breath for Donald Trump to do it, because Donald Trump believes in unilateral redistricting to be able to protect his power and protect his grifting. And I know that while I will not hold my breath for Donald Trump to take a lead on national redistricting reform, Maryland cannot just sit on our hands while we are watching this remarkable and unprecedented power grab that is being taken place in Washington, D.C. Good morning, thank you. Question three, you said you just like partisan gerrymandering, but what Maryland is contemplating, how is it not partisan gerrymandering? Second, how important was it for you to get gains for the Democrats in places like Philadelphia? Yeah, so I'll take this to the Salisbury and Frederick. One thing that I really want to do is this was not just about engaging the base, it was about enlarging it. It was about going everywhere. And since I've been the governor, we've now made over 1,100 stops all over the state of Maryland, from Western Maryland to the Eastern Shore. If you look at what we've been able to do to support down-ballot candidates, which was important to me, you know, we've now done over 30 fundraisers personally for down-ballot candidates, now put over $1.2 million of personal campaign funds into down-ballot candidates, and already we have seen that we have flipped nine seats from red to blue. From Frederick to Wicomica, right? So we're really excited about the results that we've been able to see. And again, the days of governors' legacies ending when they leave office, those days in Maryland, they're gone. Thank you. And I'll say this about the partisan gerrymandering. If you look at how the maps have been laid out and structured right now, The truth is, is there is massive partisan gerrymandering that is taking place, not just in Maryland, but around the country right now, where, you know, 93% of congressional seats are not competitive. 93% of congressional seats right now, if you're a Democrat, the biggest worry you have is getting primaried. And if you're a Republican, the biggest worry you have is getting primaried. And so we have a system right now that we have such packed districts, that I think it's important that we have national redistricting reform. And I think that frankly, Maryland, if you look at our maps, we are not immune to the fact that we need national redistricting reform as well. I have three questions, I'm gonna go over them. All right, let me just follow up first on redistricting and then small business. So, the underlying pretext of... That was question three, was to erase Republican representation. I would disagree with that. So you have almost 2 million registered Republicans and Independents in Maryland. How do you let them know that their voices count? I'd say that the point of question three was not saying we want to restrict voice. The point of question three was simply saying, should Maryland follow a different set of rules than the rest of the country? Because you know when that conversation did not come up? When the president went to Texas and said, find me seats, and when the president went to Florida and said, find me seats, and then we went to North Carolina, and we went to Alabama, and then we went to Missouri, and so I just, I think it's really important that people understand that question three was not about a seat. Question three was asking the fundamental question of who's in charge of our democracy, and can we allow Donald Trump to continue to do unilateral redistricting all around the country, or was Maryland, the free state, going to say, no, we control? Our democracy and we control what our future is going to look like. And so, again, this was not about a seat, but it is acknowledging the fact that we need national redistricting reform, because when you have the vast, vast, vast majority of congressional seats that are not competitive, that also is not a fair system. And I don't think we should be celebrating an unfair system. Yeah. I talk to small businesses every day because they are getting crushed by high costs, by taxes, by fees, by regulations, seniors also telling us they're getting crushed economically, they want to go to lower cost states. What are you going to do to keep those businesses and seniors here? Well, our priority is making sure that we can grow Maryland's economy. And the way you're going to grow and diversify Maryland's economy is by supporting small businesses. You know, that we have we've been able to attract over 17 billion dollars in private investment in Maryland since I've been the governor. That is a historic number that we've been able to attract to Maryland. But I also know that the thing I'm most proud of is the fact we've been able to add over 64,000 new businesses, many of them small businesses. And so you will see, we are going to have a focus on making sure the small businesses can be supported, that we're going to make it a little easier for small businesses to be able to grow and thrive inside of the state of Maryland, because I think that's the best way to make sure that our economy is moving and also making sure that we're diversifying off of Washington, D.C. Thank you. Yeah. Yeah, I know that some of these challenges that we're seeing and some of the points you mentioned, those are local conversations. But I do want to be clear that the state plans on being active and involved because people need a break. People need relief. And we want to be good partners in terms of providing that relief, and I think it's why, from a state perspective, we've been able to do things like the Utility Relief Act, which puts hundreds of dollars back in the pockets of Marylanders, which does things like making sure we're investing in local energy generation, because I want Maryland to be a net exporter of energy and not a net importer of energy, and that includes things like investing in... Solar and wind and battery storage and nuclear and all of the above strategy when it comes to energy because we need to do everything in our power to be able to bring these costs down. I'm also planning on and will continue taking a lead from both my perch as chair of the National Governors Association, but also just as one of our nation's governors of making sure that we have federal partners that are helping us in this process. Let's be clear, the reason that Maryland and a lot of other states that are dealing with It's because we have grid operators like PJM, which has continued to restrict projects and not green light projects, which is making it more complicated because you have less supply, which then is causing cost to rise when you have increased demand. That's not just Maryland. That's 13 jurisdictions. And we're all in unison, Democrats and Republicans, of urging reform for PJM. It means urging the White House to stop canceling projects simply because it doesn't fit into an ideological box that they have. Because we need support from Washington, D.C. to make sure that we are increasing energy options, which will then bring prices down for our people. And so, you know, making sure that our state is more affordable, making sure we can grow our economy and wean it off of Washington, D.C., and continuing the most remarkable public safety turnaround story in the United States of America, these are top priorities that I have. For our second term and we will stop at nothing and do everything in our power to make sure we're doing that and providing that for the people of Maryland. All right, thanks. We got to... All right, that's Maryland Governor Wes Moore joining us from Baltimore this morning, talking with our Melanie Alwick and others. Governor Moore winning re-election last night. Of course, we have all the race results locally and nationally on our website at fox5dc.com. You can check them all out there, or you can go to our free Fox Local app for all the latest. We're going to talk more politics coming up, but we have a lot of fun coming up on Good Day as well. So we'll take a short break. We'll see you in just two minutes.