For Oct. 31, 2022

What’s MDP saying this week?

We’re down to single digits in the countdown to Election Day. All the hard work, all the strategizing, the door knocking, the phone-calling has all led to this next week. 

Your hard work and the historical ticket that we’re voting into office is getting noticed. President Biden will be here for a third time next week and Vice President Harris was here this weekend. Why? Because they know that Maryland delivers. We lead. We’re a beacon for the rest of the states to emulate.

A video surfaced this weekend of an official on the other side who was telling GOP voters that they needed to vote late in the day on November 8 to clog up the lines in an effort to undermine the voting system. They’re already planting seeds to claim fraud or question election integrity. That’s the only play left in their miserable playbook. You have NO policies and NO solutions when your only strategy is telling people to stall in line. It’s beyond pathetic. They can delay. But they can’t deny.

Some voters ask about turnout or complacency. Some think we have this wrapped up and should just take the month off. Not. A. Chance. Elections aren’t won with registration numbers, they’re won with votes. We haven’t won anything. The only poll that matters is on November 8. We remind them that our team is working. Our organizers and volunteers are relentlessly hitting doors and calling voters. Our mail-in ballot numbers are exceeding expectations. We have a story to tell and it resonates with voters. 

On our podcast this week, Wes Moore shared some advice that he received from Madam Speaker Jones and it’s very relevant here: Just be you. Don’t spend a moment trying to be like them. Make them try to be like you. Keep that in mind.

The key about our ticket is their character. There are some people who are politicians and try to do good. Our ticket are genuinely good humans who happen to do politics. 

We also remind voters and our teams that November 8 isn’t a finish line. It’s the starting point in this new era of Maryland. An era where no matter what your zip code is, no matter what your family background or financial status is, you’ll have a prominent seat at the table. You’ll have a voice in determining the next decade for Maryland. This is not a moment, it’s a movement (I saw Hamilton at the Hippodrome this week so had to add a Hamilton line in here). 

And on November 8, we can all embrace the moment and the history that is being made when it’s announced that we’ve won all the way up and down the ballot – that’s the key wins up and down the WHOLE ballot. Seven days and a wake-up to go, let’s work. 

What happened last week?

A poll came out that showed Wes leading big over Dan Cox. October polls don’t mean anything on election night. Have a mindset that we’re down 10, and let’s keep working. 

The only thing to take from the poll were the key issues at the forefront of voters’ minds. The top 5 issues were: reproductive freedoms, inflation, womens’ rights, economy and crime. Those are all issues where our candidates have strong morals and policy ideas. The other side has either regressive or non-existent thoughts on all five of those issues. 

On the campaign trail:

Our talented and dynamic comms advisor, Ernest Bailey, has put together weekly talking points on our gubernatorial matchup. A few key ones are below: 

• Today, Wes Moore cast his ballot and was joined by his family and an excited crowd of supporters. Earlier this week, Aruna Miller cast her ballot as well.  

• This past week, Wes Moore and Aruna Miller continued their bus tour across the state and met with Marylanders participating in early voting.

• Wes earned an endorsement from President Barack Obama, who released an ad promoting Wes as “the leader Maryland needs” and urging Marylanders to vote.

• Business Insider profiled Wes Moore and his empowering message of patriotism – Maryland Democratic gubernatorial nominee Wes Moore says MAGA can’t ‘define what it means to be a patriot’

• At the end of the week, the Moore campaign released its latest finance report, showing a staggering surge in grassroots support across Maryland in the final weeks of the election, with more than 70 percent of donations coming from those giving $100 or less and over 20,000 individual donors.

• This weekend, Wes rallied with Vice President Kamala Harris and Maryland Democrats to encourage Marylanders to get out to vote in the final days of the election.

• Instead of working to earn votes, the Cox campaign continues to demonstrate that its foremost priority is to rile up its conspiratorial MAGA supporters by baselessly casting doubt on the legitimacy of this election.
  • Last week, Cox launched a voter intimidation campaign, calling for volunteers to police election drop boxes overnight, to “photograph and video any suspicious activity” and even encouraging confronting voters. Cox’s team dubbed this the “Stop the Maryland Steal” campaign.
  • Also last week, the Cox campaign denied press access to a rally from which footage leaked showing a speaker encouraging supporters to “Vote on November 8th as late in the day as possible,” adding that everyone standing “in long, long lines at 6 o’clock” would help them.
  • These anti-democratic efforts come just weeks after the Cox campaign was revealed to be working with an election conspiracy group to recruit 600 volunteers to prepare to launch an Arizona-style hand count audit the morning after the election. Before that, Cox made the main theme of his campaign an effort to delay this year’s election results, along with his continual refusal to commit to accepting results post-election. Cox is clearly laying the groundwork to deny this year’s election results just as he continues to contest the 2020 presidential election results.

In the News: 

• MD Dems outraised the GOP by large margins. 

• MD Matters questioned Dan Cox’s endgame. 

• Jaime Harrison joined our party chair and ticket for a rally at UMD. 

• President Biden is coming to Maryland on Election Eve. 

For Oct. 24, 2022

What’s MDP saying this week?

We’re excited to make history here in Maryland in two weeks. We’re going to lead the way for the rest of the country. They’ll be able to look at us, and say ‘wow, that’s how things should be.’ Diversity, inclusion, joy. A slate of representatives that look like, and carry themselves like, the people they represent. 

The other side? Well they’ve had a week, haven’t they? Video surfaced of Dan Cox – our gubernatorial opponent and the standard-bearer of Maryland’s Republican Party – accepting a gift from the Proud Boys during his Primary Night Party a few months ago. The man elected as the leader of the GOP in Maryland eagerly accepting a gift from a group that proudly spews anti-semetic, racist, and hateful rhetoric. A white nationalist group that proudly stormed the Capitol during last year’s insurrection. And Dan Cox smiles, shakes his hand, accepts the gift and asks his name. We’re not shocked, we’re not surprised. We’re disappointed … as usual. And his claim that he couldn’t hear the greeting and gift presentation from the racist insurrectionist is pathetic because he left it up on his campaign site for months. He knew exactly what he was doing. 

And for an encore performance, Cox no-showed an event his campaign had been promoting without bothering to notify supporters. Sounds like a bit of … disarray. 

Even the Baltimore Banner had this to say about Cox: “It’s not entirely clear what Cox’s path to victory is. His campaign has been disorganized, not responding to reporters’ questions, not publicizing the candidate’s events and pulling out from scheduled appearances.”

When people show you who they are, believe them the first time. He’s showing that he doesn’t care about Marylanders. He’s shown he doesn’t care about women’s rights. He doesn’t care about you, your family, your neighbors, or any community in Maryland other than his QAnon bubble. He only cares about making daddy Trump happy, and happily celebrating with racist hate groups. That is who he is. He’s showing you. So believe him. And on November 8th, we’ll make sure he has no chance of coming anywhere near a victory.

We don’t want to just win. We want a landslide. We want a mandate. And we’re going to earn it.

So let’s go win this week.

What happened last week?

Dan Cox made a fool of himself, again. See above.

On the campaign trail:

Our outstanding comms advisor, Ernest Bailey, has put together weekly talking points on our gubernatorial opponent – Dan Cox. A few key ones are below: 

• The Washington Post highlighted a video showing that on the night of his primary victory, Dan Cox accepted “a present from Maryland Proud Boys” given to him by a man wearing a black polo shirt with a Proud Boys insignia. Cox not only accepted the gift but chose weeks later to upload footage of him receiving the gift to a campaign account, only deleting the video after being contacted by the Washington Post.

• The Proud Boys are a well-known white supremacist group that led major breaches of the Capitol on January 6th, playing a leading role in the effort to block Congress from certifying the results of the 2020 presidential election. More than 40 members of the group were indicted in connection with the insurrection.

• The post-primary gift is not Cox’s only connection to the Proud Boys. The day before the insurrection, Cox made a statement in support of Proud Boys’ Leader Henry “Enrique” Tarrio. Tarrio was indicted and arrested for his role in planning the attack in March 2022 and, in June, he and four associates were charged with seditious conspiracy. 

• Cox claimed he did not hear that the comb was “a present from Maryland Proud Boys.” The video of the encounter, however, was a part of a batch of nine short videos uploaded in August, weeks after Cox’s primary victory. Of the eight which remain undeleted, five feature interactions with supporters, averaging under a minute in length. The clip was not plucked from hours of footage. It defies all logic to claim that the Cox campaign was unaware of the contents of the video. 

• After skipping out on community leaders to fly to Florida for a fundraiser at Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate, Cox was conspicuously silent about the event, refusing to answer questions from the press and opting not to promote the event at all on his social media pages.

• Cox claimed weeks ago that Trump was helping his campaign “without anything back to him.” Maryland law states that “A person may contribute directly or indirectly no more than $6,000 to one political committee during the election cycle,” raising questions as to how Cox has benefitted from the photos with he and Trump, advertised at $25,000. 

• While Cox kept quiet about his time with the unpopular former president, he ended the week promoting meeting Ted Cruz and an endorsement from Rep. Matt Gaetz.

• With many questions remaining regarding Cox’s time with the former president, a week after the fundraiser a new report details Trump having convened a series of in-person meetings and conference calls to lay the groundwork to challenge the 2022 midterm election results, as Cox has been doing in Maryland.

Also:

• Marylanders and the press are taking notice that Barry Glassman’s voting record is out of step with the mainstream of Maryland. He is out of step on abortion, marriage equality, guns, schools, supporting working families, the environment and much more. 

• We called him out on social this week, and he’s posted photos of himself and Trump together while pretending like he’s not part of the MAGA wing. When asked by the press about it, he refused to distance himself from Donald Trump: “Glassman did not answer specific questions about where and when the photo with Trump was taken or if the men exchanged any words.” 

• The Washington Post did a great profile of Anthony Brown, check it out here.

• Wes Moore is traveling to Bowie today to conclude his tour of every Maryland HBCU. 

• Last week, Wes was all around Maryland talking to voters and visiting local business and celebrated his birthday on the Eastern Shore with many supporters.

• And, Politico highlighted Wes’ candidacy—saying he is “on the rise.” 

For Oct. 17, 2022

What’s MDP saying this week? We continue to hit the GOP from different angles every day, while simultaneously lifting our party and our ticket. 

First, a quick reminder that political campaigns can be the target of some shady activity from the outside so if you’re part of the coordinated campaign and you get any questions regarding attacks on any of our candidates, you direct them to me or Saif, and we’ll handle it or we’ll work with the individual campaign to handle it. If you get an odd request from someone outside of the team or someone claiming to be the press, and it doesn’t feel right, direct them to me or Saif. 

******

We’re no longer months away from Election Day, we’re just weeks away. And we haven’t taken a single day for granted or slowed down a bit. Our party from top to bottom is sprinting through the finish line. These last few weeks and months have felt great – especially that dominant debate performance this week – but we want November 8th, 9th, and every day after that to feel even greater. We don’t want to just win. We want a landslide. We want a mandate. And we’re going to have it.

There’s a clear choice on the ballot between ignorance on one side and joy on the other. Hate and divisiveness on one side, character and unity on the other. Wes and Aruna – and our whole ticket – carry our hopes on their shoulders. They’re doing their part, now we must do ours and lift them as strongly as we can. 

Take a second to imagine with me. We wake up November 9th with Wes, Aruna, Brooke and Anthony leading our state. History right before our eyes. That’s the dream, isn’t it? 

We must work for that. We feel tired, but this isn’t the time to slow down. Just keep pushing. Whatever you have left in the tank, use it now. Because the alternative to that dream is the possibility of a group of extreme MAGA Republicans, radical alt-right conspiracy theorists and Confederate sympathizers leading our state with a QAnon flag hanging from the Governor’s Mansion. That’s the nightmare. 

So we must work to make sure that we get Democrats elected up and down the ballot. The other side doesn’t slow down. Their new party leader made it quite clear on that debate stage this week how he feels about women’s rights, reproductive freedoms, and democracy itself. They’re dangerous, they work from the shadows, and they don’t rest. And neither will we. 

Our messaging is clear and concise. Our organization from top to bottom is talented, hard-working and energetic. Our volunteers are knocking thousands of doors each week. They’re in every corner of Maryland right now as I write this making sure we get the votes we need. 

Let’s work this week.

What happened last week?

We held a press conference last week at our HQ in Annapolis calling out Dan Cox and his awful thoughts on womens rights, specifically reproductive rights. 

The Maryland Republican Party is reeling. They unsuccessfully attempted to hold a ‘Unite the Right’ rally in Arnold. Yes, that’s the same name as the deadly events in Charlottesville, which goes to show exactly what the MD GOP idolizes and hopes to be. Once word got out, almost all of the GOP elected officials who were scheduled to attend (including Dan Cox) ran away from the event, and it came out afterward that they had never even booked the restaurant that they were advertising as their location. GOP in disarray. 

Simply put, our next governor dominated the debate stage last week. It will be the only debate between the two gubernatorial candidates and he made us proud. And then he celebrated his birthday with his family, volunteers, supporters, and Dems from across the state at Camden Yards.

On the campaign trail:

Our outstanding comms advisor, Ernest Bailey, has put together a weekly talking points doc on our gubernatorial opponent – Dan Cox. A few key ones are below: 

Today, Wes Moore is officially launching his bus tour, campaigning in Frederick and Hagerstown while his opponent hops on a plane to fundraise with Trump at Mar-A-Lago.

• On the trail, Wes Moore was all over – from the Pigtown Festival in Baltimore to a crab feast in Pocomoke City, Wes continues to meet Marylanders in their communities

• Wes Moore continues to make his case to voters across all media. This week, he launched a new ad, What They’re Made Of. The ad highlights Wes’ patriotism and military service and is even running on Fox News. From the beginning of his campaign, Wes Moore has been committed to reaching as many voters as possible, no matter their party ID.

• Cox skipped out on a forum attended by over a thousand faith and community leaders to instead hop on a flight to Palm Beach in order to cozy up to Donald Trump at a Mar-a-Lago fundraiser, where tickets are nearly $2,000 and they are charging bundlers $25,000 for a photo of him and Trump.

• Cox says he and Trump talk “regularly” about his campaign and Trump has “promised to carry [him] through the finish line.” Cox’s history demonstrates he will always put the MAGA agenda first, from promoting 2020 election conspiracy theories to working aiding Trump’s legal effort to overturn the election to his threat to use Maryland’s national guard and the state police to protect Trump

Also:

• Wes Moore received the Baltimore Sun’s endorsement

• And, Politico also said that Wes Moore is ‘on the brink of history’

• Our next comptroller – Brooke Lierman – put out a great new ad this week highlighting the fact that Brooke will be an independent voice for Marylanders and will look out for their values and tax dollars
• Heather Mizeur’s campaign announced they’re hosting an Election Night Watch Party on Kent Island

What do we say to voters who think we have this election in the bag (This was included last week but is still relevant): Voters might see poll numbers or they might hear how we’re a blue state and assume this election is wrapped up. That kind of indifference won’t work and we don’t want that kind of complacency. The recent poll numbers are reflecting the Democratic momentum of our candidates and the campaign. Good news for us, but we have to remind them that polls have been wrong before, specifically in this same race in 2014 and 2018. We need to continue to build on this momentum and give a decisive victory to our whole ticket. The only poll that matters is Nov. 8. Additionally, we remind voters that reproductive freedom is on the ballot. Safety and equity are on the ballot. Economic and educational advances are on the ballot. A Maryland led by Dan Cox with a QAnon flag hanging outside the Governor’s Mansion is the biggest threat to democracy our state has seen. We’ve also seen how slim majorities in Congress lead to gridlock and we can’t afford that in Maryland if we want Governor Moore and our ticket to have a chance to make real change. This new era will need a supermajority in the General Assembly and as many Democrats in office as possible.

PODCAST

We have Heather Mizeur, Jessica Fitzwater and Jacob Day coming on the podcast this week, then Wes Moore next week! Tune in!