The 2022 Democratic race for governor hit the airwaves Thursday, with two candidates beginning to air spots.
Both Democrats, tech entrepreneur Michael Rosenbaum and former nonprofit CEO Wes Moore, are on the air with spots that simultaneously aim to introduce the candidates to the voters and tout their recently released jobs plans, which seek to confront racial inequities in the economic system.
Moore and Rosenbaum are making their first bids for elective office, so are less well known to the voters than many of the other candidates in the nine-way primary — which may explain their desire to be on the airwaves sooner rather than later.
Moore’s ads are focused initially on Prince George’s County — the Maryland jurisdiction with the largest number of Democrats and the highest concentration of Black voters. He is airing 60-second spots on five Black-owned radio stations in the Washington, D.C., market for the next four weeks.
“Too many people do everything right and still can’t get ahead,” Moore, who lives in Baltimore, says at the beginning of the ad. “It’s time to change that. I’m Democrat Wes Moore. I’m running for governor because in this moment, these systemic challenges require generational change.”
Moore goes on to lay out his biography — his family struggles after his father died, becoming a Rhodes Scholar, his military service and professional career in business and the nonprofit world. He talks about bringing people together around his “bold vision,” and vows to “build a Maryland that leaves nobody behind.”
Moore’s radio ads are being accompanied by print ads that will run over the next four weeks in The Washington Informer, a Black-owned regional newspaper, and in Prince George’s Suite, a Black-owned lifestyle magazine. In all, Moore will spend “in the mid-five figures” for the ad buys, a campaign representative said.
Rosenbaum’s 30-second video ad, which was first reported by The Baltimore Sun on Thursday morning, will, according to the newspaper, run for two months across social media and “connected TV” services. The campaigning is spending in the “low six figures” to air the spots.
In the ad, Rosenbaum addresses the camera directly at first and introduces himself.
“I’m Mike Rosenbaum. I’m running for governor because talented people across Maryland are systematically locked out of opportunity because of their races, class or gender. But I know that can change.”
Rosenbaum goes on to describe how he founded two tech companies in Baltimore “focused on equity” and touted his new jobs plan, which he said will create 250,000 new careers across the state and boost people’s salaries “by thousands of dollars.”
The state’s 2022 primaries are on June 28.
Josh Kurtz
Founding editor
Founding Editor Josh Kurtz is a veteran chronicler of Maryland politics and government. He began covering the State House in 1995 for The Gazette newspapers, and has been writing about state and local politics ever since. He was an editor at Roll Call, the Capitol Hill newspaper, for eight years, and for eight years was the editor of E&E Daily, which covers energy and environmental policy on Capitol Hill. For 6 1/2 years Kurtz wrote a weekly column on state politics for Center Maryland and has written for several other Maryland publications as well. Kurtz regularly gives speeches and appears on TV and radio shows to discuss Maryland politics.
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