Democrat Wes Moore will be Maryland's 1st Black governor

(Image credit: Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images)

published 9 November 2022

Democrat Wes Moore has won Maryland's gubernatorial race, several news outlets are projecting.

Moore, 44, will be Maryland's first Black governor and just the third Black governor in U.S. history. An author and former nonprofit executive, Moore is an Army veteran and political newcomer, who campaigned on the idea of "leaving no one behind."

Moore defeated Republican Dan Cox, a far-right state legislator who was backed by former President Donald Trump but not Maryland's outgoing Republican Gov. Larry Hogan, who called him "a QAnon whack job." In September, Maryland Matters found that one-time Hogan donors were contributing substantially to Moore's campaign — between July 19 and Aug. 23, those former contributors gave $117,861 to Moore and $29,727 to Cox.

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Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.