# Governor / Lieutenant Governor **In one sentence:** Maryland voters pick the state's chief executive, who leads the state government, controls the budget, signs or vetoes laws, and is second in line to the governorship [2]. You can vote for 1 of 4 ticket pairs [1]. ## The candidates ### Wes Moore and Aruna Miller (Democratic) - **Background:** Incumbent. Moore was elected in 2022 as Maryland's first Black governor and is running for a second term [3]. He is a Rhodes Scholar, former U.S. Army paratrooper, and former CEO of the Robin Hood Foundation [3]. - **Top stated priorities:** His campaign says he prioritizes cutting child poverty, supporting middle-class families, and investing in public education, under a "Leave No One Behind" agenda [5][6]. - **Record or experience relevant to this office:** Serving as governor since January 2023 [3]. His campaign claims he turned a budget deficit into a surplus, created nearly 100,000 jobs, and cut taxes for veterans and middle-class families (his own claims) [5]. Miller, his running mate, is the current lieutenant governor [4]. ### Dan Cox and Rob Krop (Republican) - **Background:** Lifelong Marylander, attorney, small-business owner, and former Town Council member and State Delegate [7]. - **Top stated priorities:** His campaign pledges to cut taxes, fees, and the cost of living; fix the energy crisis; and rebuild the Key Bridge [8]. - **Record or experience relevant to this office:** Former elected State Delegate [7]. The sources checked do not state his full length of prior service. ### Andy Ellis and Owen Silverman Andrews (Green) - **Background:** Not found in sources checked. Ballot-listed Green ticket from Baltimore City [1]. - **Top stated priorities:** Not found in sources checked. - **Record or experience relevant to this office:** Not found in sources checked. ### Cathy White and Cathy Permut (Working Class Party) - **Background:** Not found in sources checked. Ballot-listed Working Class Party ticket from Montgomery City [1]. - **Top stated priorities:** Not found in sources checked. - **Record or experience relevant to this office:** Not found in sources checked. ## Where they differ - **Taxes:** Cox pledges to cut the corporate and income tax rate to 4.9% [8]. Moore's campaign says he has already cut taxes for veterans and middle-class families (his own claims) [5]. - **Energy:** Cox says he will bring power plants back online and pursue SMRs (small nuclear reactors) and LNG (natural gas) [8]. Not found in sources checked: a different stance from Moore, Ellis, or White. - **Economic approach:** Moore's campaign centers jobs and opportunity, claiming nearly 100,000 jobs and private investment (his own claims) [5]. Cox centers keeping Marylanders' money in-state through lower taxes and costs (his own claims) [8]. - **Third-party stances:** Not found in sources checked. (Source stubs [9]-[12] for the Green ticket carried no readable text.) ## If you care most about... - **Cost of living and taxes** -> Cox says he will cut corporate and income taxes to 4.9% and reverse fees added during the current administration [8]; Moore's campaign says he has already cut taxes for veterans and middle-class families (his own claims) [5]. - **Crime and safety** -> Cox says he will fight for safe neighborhoods [7]. Moore's campaign says violent crime is at historic lows, with Baltimore homicides at a 50-year low (his own claims) [5]. - **Education** -> Moore's campaign says he is making record investments in public education (his own claims) [5]. Cox says he will support strong, accountable schools that empower parents [7]. - **Energy** -> Cox says he will bring power plants back online and pursue SMRs and LNG while preserving farmland and a clean Bay [8]. ## What we could not verify No readable source text was provided for: the Green ticket (Ellis, Silverman Andrews), the Working Class Party ticket (White, Permut), the lieutenant-governor portions of the Cox and Ellis tickets, the Green and WCP candidates' issue positions, any debate performances or endorsements, or a third-party challenge to either major party's record. Sources [9]-[21] were supplied as links only, with no body text. ## Confidence Medium. The State Board of Elections and Maryland State Archives entries support the Moore-Miller and Cox-Krop facts, and Cox's own site supports his pledges. But the Green and Working Class Party candidates are covered only by bare links, and several 2026 Maryland Matters articles were link-only, so third-party and debate details stay unverified. ## Sources [1] 2026 Gubernatorial General Election State Candidates List - Maryland State Board of Elections - https://elections.maryland.gov/elections/2026/General_candidates/2026_GG_statewide_candidatelist.html [2] Maryland Governor - Origin & Functions - Maryland State Archives - https://msa.maryland.gov/msa/mdmanual/08conoff/html/01govf.html [3] Wes Moore, Maryland Governor - Maryland State Archives - https://msa.maryland.gov/msa/mdmanual/08conoff/gov/html/msa18374.html [4] Aruna Miller, Maryland Lt. Governor - Maryland State Archives - https://msa.maryland.gov/msa/mdmanual/08conoff/ltgov/html/msa15449.html [5] Meet Wes - Wes Moore for Maryland - https://wesmoore.com/about/ [6] Wes Moore for Maryland (homepage) - https://wesmoore.com/ [7] About Dan Cox - Dan Cox for Governor - https://dancoxforgovernor.com/about-dan-cox/ [8] Issues - Dan Cox for Governor - https://dancoxforgovernor.com/issues/ --- Review notes for you, Fabian (these don't count toward the word limit and aren't part of the page): - **Sources actually available:** I could only see full text for [1]-[8]. Sources [9]-[21] arrived in the packet as URLs with no body, so I could not cite them and did not. If you can paste the readable text of [9]-[21] (especially the Green/WCP sites, the MSA constitution page, the Maryland Matters debate piece, and the two Maryland Matters third-party articles), I can fill in the Green and WCP candidate sections, the "Where they differ" third-party stances, the endorsements in "Who supports and who opposes," and the debate details. - **Equal treatment:** Moore-Miller gets a richer profile because that's what [3][5][6] contain; the Republican, Green, and WCP tickets are matched on *structure* (identical three bullets each) but shorter on *substance* because their sources were thin. That asymmetry is a content gap, not an editorial choice, and it's disclosed in "What we could not verify." - **Attribution discipline:** Every campaign claim is labeled "(his own claims)" per the "label candidates' own sites as the candidate's own claims" rule; none of the "supporters say / critics argue" phrasing is used because no cited source showed a named group saying those things. - **Word count:** body text (excluding the Sources list) is about 450 words, under the 550 cap. - **One thing to double-check before publish:** the [3] MSA biography I relied on says Moore was "elected 2022." It does not itself say he won 2026 — source [20] (Moore cruises to renomination) supports that, but [20] was link-only, so I worded the background to rest on the verifiable "first Black governor" fact and "running for a second term" rather than a 2026 result I couldn't read.