Democratic gubernatorial candidate Wes Moore and his wife, Dawn Flythe Moore, walked off his campaign bus early Monday morning to cast their votes at Baltimore’s Westside Skill Center with their 11-year-old daughter, Mia.
As he walked to the registration table, a poll worker told him he didn’t need to tell her his name — she already knew who he was.
After greeting volunteers, supporters and poll workers, Moore stood behind his daughter and talked her through the ballot process, reading each question to her off the screen before he submitted his response. As he completed his ballot, she held her hands to her cheeks.
“That’s the sound of Democracy,” Moore said as his vote was submitted.
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During a Monday morning stop in Columbia, Republican gubernatorial nominee Dan Cox told reporters that he is visiting early voting sites to greet supporters, but plans to cast his ballot on Election Day.
“Probably Nov. 8 is what my wife and I were planning on,” he said.
With only eight days until Election Day, Moore should be confident in his chances of winning the governorship.
A Baltimore Sun Media and the University of Baltimore poll of likely voters surveyed Oct. 20-23 found Moore leading Cox by 31 points. And fresh campaign finance reports out Friday showed Moore has continued to out-fundraise Cox. Moore collected $5.8 million since late August; Cox and his running mate reported a combined $592,000 in contributions during the same time period.
Similarly, Congressman Anthony Brown, the Democratic nominee for attorney general, and Del. Brooke Lierman, the party’s candidate for comptroller, are well ahead of their GOP opponents in finances and public polling.
Lierman cast her vote Monday afternoon at the Southeast Anchor branch of the Enoch Pratt Library in Highlandtown, joined by her family. She faces Harford County Republican Barry Glassman.
Lierman said she was at an early voting location at 7 a.m. Monday and would continue to visit the polls each morning throughout early voting, which ends Thursday.
”We’ll be working hard through election night at 8:01 p.m. to talk to voters and make sure they know and understand how important this election is,” she said.
After her husband, Eben Hansel, dropped his ballot in a box outside, the two-time delegate for South Baltimore took her two elementary school children inside as she voted. Sporting a “future voter” sticker, Lierman’s daughter Eliza wished onlookers a happy Halloween.
On Saturday, Moore, Brown, Lierman, U.S. Sen. Chris Van Hollen, who is up for reelection, and other Democrats on the ballot held a rally with Vice President Kamala Harris, urging Maryland Democrats to vote.
Moore and Harris are set to appear together again on Election Day eve alongside President Joe Biden.
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Maryland Policy & Politics
Asked Monday morning why he continues to participate in such high-profile events when the odds appear in his favor, Moore said that “the only poll that matters is Election Day,” and he is running as if 10-points behind.
“That’s the only way to campaign, frankly, it’s how I plan on governing,” he responded. “The reason we’re going to every corner of the state … is because that’s the kind of governor that I plan on being, and so we feel the enthusiasm — we feel the momentum.”
Cox made an infrequent media appearance Monday morning with members of Faith & Blue, an organization that seeks to connect communities to their local law enforcement agencies through faith-based organizations.
Asked how he felt about being behind both in fundraising and public polling, Cox, flanked by eight supporters and surrounded by nearly as many members of the press, said his campaign’s internal polling showed Moore is not ahead.
Cox declined to share any data regarding this internal poll with the press.
“We’ll show you on Election Day,” he said.
The Baltimore Sun reporter Cassidy Jensen contributed to this article.