In a state that had Republican governors for most of the previous two decades, Gov. Wes Moore entered office as a political outsider nearly three years ago with a message of working across party lines — of “partnership” in every area possible.

Standing outside the State House on Tuesday, he launched his reelection campaign under different circumstances, and a different message.

“When we’re watching the chaos from Washington, the people of this state want to know that they have a fighter as governor,” Moore said, telling any Republican who’s thinking about challenging him to “be prepared.”

Moore entered his bid for a second term with a fighting attitude and, according to political observers, solid chances of keeping the Maryland governor’s office one year from now.

Despite Republicans’ recent history of winning in the state, Donald Trump’s return to the White House and Moore’s largely popular record so far will make it tough for any Republican to unseat him, even with some of the economic and political challenges the governor has faced, analysts said.

“I think the race is his to lose,” said Joseph Dietrich, a Towson University assistant professor of political science. “If Republicans can’t attract Larry Hogan back into the race, I don’t think Moore has much competition. I really don’t.”

Hogan, who left office with positive approval ratings in 2023 and would be permitted to run again, has leveled critiques against his successor — primarily about how Moore used a series of tax and fee increases to help fill a $3.3 billion state budget deficit this year. Other Republicans have piled on, with groups like the conservative Maryland Freedom Caucus saying Tuesday that “Maryland can’t afford four more years of Moore.”

Moore, in January, proposed a tax overhaul that raised rates mostly for the wealthiest Marylanders while not changing or giving a modest cut to most filers. Republicans took issue with the plan, along with rising transportation fees and electric bills, which they said Democrats weren’t doing enough to address.

Patrick Gonzales, an Anne Arundel County-based pollster, said whether voters perceive their taxes are being raised is sometimes more important than the specifics of the actual tax increases.

“One of the things that is terribly, potentially, problematic for the incumbent governor is something like an electric bill,” Gonzales said. “Those are the kinds of things that potentially accrue in the minds of many voters. And when voters are not happy, it’s just a fact of life that they always take it out on the incumbent.”

Dietrich said taxes and the cost of goods will be the attack that critics lob and that Moore could defend by saying they are national issues that he’s trying to help at the state level.

Moore’s most significant challenge, Dietrich said, will be combating the expectation that he’s only interested in serving half of the next four-year term.

“His biggest problem right now is he’s got to explain to Marylanders that he’s not running for president, that he is not actively exploring running for president,” Dietrich said.

Moore has said repeatedly that he’s “not running.” He rejected the notion to reporters again on Tuesday by saying that he has “never once said” that he was interested in running. Still, he’s taken steps that other potential presidential candidates have taken — like traveling to South Carolina for a notable Democratic event and engaging in a war of words with Trump that has turned personal in the last month.

The math benefits Moore

Moore won his election in 2022 against Trump-endorsed Del. Dan Cox by a landslide 32 percentage points.

The fact that Trump lost the state to Vice President Kamala Harris by a similar margin last year — and that no Democratic governor has lost reelection in Maryland in living memory — makes Moore’s prospects pretty positive, Gonzales said.

But something to look for in the coming months will be Moore’s approval ratings, particularly after the next annual legislative session ends in April, he said.

Gonzales’ last statewide poll — in the middle of this year’s session — found Moore’s approval ratings had slipped from 61% positive in January to 55% in March, the result of dwindling support for Moore among independent voters.

Gonzales said it would be more troubling for Moore if the numbers dipped closer to 45% approval and 45% disapproval, as they were for former Democratic Gov. Martin O’Malley right before the 2014 election, when then-Lieutenant Gov. Anthony Brown lost to Hogan.

Running on an aggressive anti-tax message, Hogan won both in 2014 and again in 2018 by securing at least 30% of Democratic voters’ support in addition to nearly all Republicans and half of independents.

Analysts say that breakdown of support is the only path for Republicans to run successfully in a state where registered Democrats outnumber Republicans, 2-1. It’s a path, they say, that would be difficult in 2026 for anyone other than Hogan, who also failed in his own attempt to do it again during last year’s U.S. Senate race against now-Sen. Angela Alsobrooks.

“Hogan’s biggest weakness right now is he lost in the Senate race,” said Roger Hartley, dean of the University of Baltimore’s College of Public Affairs. “It’s hard to recover from that.”

Hartley said Senate Minority Leader Steve Hershey, a Queen Anne’s County Republican who launched an exploratory committee last week, has bona fide GOP credentials but far from the same statewide name recognition as Hogan. Others who intend to run against Moore face a similar issue — including Baltimore businessman Ed Hale, Del. Christopher Bouchat, farmer Kurt Wedekind and law enforcement veteran John Myrick.

Moore, for his part, also listed off some of those names, as well as Republican U.S. Rep. Andy Harris, on Tuesday as “people who are making a similar type of noise.”

“Whoever it is, they should come ready,” Moore said. “Because we have a very real record to run on, and a record that we’re very proud of, knowing that there is still more work to do.”

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