Democrat Wes Moore earned a historic victory on Tuesday, becoming Maryland’s first Black governor-elect and the third Black person elected governor in U.S. history.
I explained a bit about Moore’s backstory, immortalized in his bestselling memoir “The Other Wes Moore,” while live-blogging the election results on Tuesday.
Our own Joy Reid interviewed Moore during Wednesday’s special election coverage to discuss his history-making moment and what he hopes to accomplish while in office.
Moore’s victory was in contrast to the fate of Black women running for governor this year, which should remind us of the particular hurdles Black women continue to face in becoming their state’s top executive. Six Black women ran for governor this year, according to a report out of the American University’s Women and Politics Institute. Of that group, two won their party’s nomination: Democrats Stacey Abrams of Georgia and Deidre DeJear of Iowa.
In 2018, Abrams became the first Black woman to win a major party’s nomination for governor.
Since then, I’ve always appreciated her focus in spite of racialized, gendered attacks meant to rock her.








