While Maryland Gov. Wes Moore (D) spent last week in verbal combat with President Donald Trump over a sewage spill, he was also quietly losing his biggest political battle at home.
Moore’s months-long fight to redraw Maryland’s congressional maps — and oust its lone Republican member of Congress — produced zero movement among Democrats in the Maryland Senate.
Despite a public pressure campaign without modern precedent in this deep-blue state, which typically resolves intraparty fights behind closed doors, Tuesday’s unofficial deadline to act on mid-cycle redistricting ahead of the 2026 midterms will come and go without fellow Democrats heeding Moore’s demands for a vote.
“The window of opportunity is closed for ’26,” said Maryland Senate President Bill Ferguson (D-Baltimore City), who refuses to redistrict, arguing that the state’s Democrats have already gerrymandered as much as possible and that further attempts will backfire.
The apparent loss, which Moore vehemently does not concede, draws a sharp contrast between himself and another potential 2028 Democratic presidential contender, California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D), who swiftly persuaded his state’s legislators and voters to redraw five more Democratic-leaning seats in retaliation for Republican gerrymandering done at Trump’s behest in Texas.
Other potential 2028 presidential candidates also did not push through redistricting, but Moore stands alone as a Democrat who vowed to fight Trump with a redistricting scheme but failed to achieve it.
Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, another potential 2028 contender, cast redistricting in his state as a potential counterpunch to GOP map-drawing in neighboring Indiana, for example. But it was a punch he never threw because Indiana’s redistricting failed.
Moore rejects the conventional wisdom that Maryland must pass a map before Tuesday, the candidate filing deadline, after which new congressional districts would require shifting the entire election schedule.
“These are artificial deadlines. These are deadlines that are made by politicians,” Moore said in an interview, noting they can be changed by a simple vote. “I will never stop fighting for democracy. I never have before, and I’m not going to start now.”
His staff is also developing a plan B, according to someone with direct knowledge of the plans who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the strategy.
The loss on anti-Trump policy follows a week in which Moore burnished his national reputation as an anti-Trump combatant, with his ongoing feud with the president spanning days of news coverage. Democratic strategists say that by the time the 2028 presidential election rolls around, voters are more likely to remember the brand Moore staked out against Trump than the fact that he couldn’t get redistricting passed.
“The 2028 presidential election isn’t going to be decided on who won a redistricting fight in 2025 or 2026. Voters assess a candidate’s entire profile, not just one moment,” said Democratic strategist Lis Smith, who helped Pete Buttigieg launch his national profile.
David Axelrod, Barack Obama’s former political strategist, said that “there’s going to be a lot of water under the bridge between now and then.” Newsom will get credit for winning a redistricting battle, but it’s not clear Moore will suffer from losing his, Axelrod said.
“Obviously, it’s a defeat when you can’t get solidarity among your own party, and questions will be raised about whether you should have known that before you went down that road. But he’s got enormous strength as well,” Axelrod said. “Being singled out by Trump — for the Democrats who will be motivated by this — has its own cachet.”
Earlier this month, Trump disinvited Moore, the lone Black governor of a U.S. state, from a White House dinner Saturday night, and called Moore “not worthy” and “foul mouthed.” The president also accused Moore of mismanaging a massive sewage spill in the Potomac River.
Moore, in turn, accused the president of ignorance — the Environmental Protection Agency has oversight of the spill, not Maryland. In a nationally televised town hall, Moore called Trump “unhinged” and when asked whether he thought Trump is racist, Moore responded, “I think the question of ‘Is he racist?’ should be posed to him. But frankly, I think his actions probably give the answer before he even has a chance to answer himself.”
Republicans had been eager to challenge Moore’s redistricting effort in court because they thought they could save the state’s only congressional Republican — House Freedom Caucus Chair Andy Harris — and possibly even pick up a seat.
“Wes Moore’s failure is a stunning display of his inability to work with the supermajority of his own party,” said Del. Kathy Szeliga (R-Baltimore County), who would have been the GOP’s lead plaintiff challenging a new map. (Democrats hold 34 out of 47 Maryland Senate seats.)
“Senate President Bill Ferguson saved him from national embarrassment,” Szeliga said, adding that “Moore has spent more time courting the national press than the senators in the Maryland Senate.”
Moore said his motivation on redistricting comes from two places: harms to his state and his perspective as a Black man.
“Maryland has been hit harder than any other place in this country,” Moore said in an interview, referring to federal layoffs, denial of Federal Emergency Management Agency aid and threats of deploying the National Guard among the ways he argues that Trump has used the federal government to target Maryland.
“There is a bigger obligation that I do feel,” Moore said, “and I feel it as the only Black governor in this country.”
Moore has labeled redistricting “political redlining” since a September speech to the Congressional Black Caucus, calling new congressional boundaries that oust Black and Brown officials akin to discriminatory housing practices that for generations made it more expensive to buy homes in Black neighborhoods. Prominent Black leaders — Reps. Emanuel Cleaver II (D-Missouri) and James E. Clyburn (D-South Carolina), for example — will face difficult if not impossible reelection bids as a result of GOP redistricting.
“I use the words political redlining very intentionally because we are watching how political lines are being drawn to diminish power — Black leadership — the same way that residential lines were used to diminish Black wealth. And you cannot look at this assault that is taking place from this administration and not see how the political leadership is also just part of a much larger plan,” Moore said, noting the disproportionately skyrocketing unemployment rate for Black women.
“Maryland has a solemn obligation to understand the larger game that is going on and the larger role that we have to play to be able to combat it,” he said.
The White House did not respond to a request for comment.
Moore has deployed his rhetoric in private meetings with lawmakers and dozens of national interviews since October — and repeated his plea in this month’s State of the State address — casting Maryland as a critical player in undermine Trump’s effort to secure GOP power in the House of Representatives.
The governor orchestrated Democratic Party stars to sell his case, including a six-page letter from Rep. Jamie Raskin, a plea from influential Black pastors and visits to Annapolis last week from former attorney general Eric Holder, chairman of the National Democratic Redistricting Committee, and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-New York).
None of it has swayed Maryland’s Senate to move, nor did quick passage of the legislation in the House of Delegates.
After a private meeting with the Senate president that lasted more than a half hour, Jeffries told reporters: “Bill Ferguson authentically believes that the votes don’t exist in the state Senate to move forward. The only way to find out is to allow an immediate up-or-down vote.”
Ferguson flatly refused. “For the umpteenth time, in the Senate we generally do not bring things to the floor that don’t have the votes to pass,” he said, pointing out the chamber’s debate procedures can suck up a large amount of time without leading to a vote.
He argues that a new map would not survive a legal challenge. And if it failed, courts could draw new districts that would elect more Republicans.
“The map that we have today is our best option for fighting against this Trump administration,” Ferguson said.
“What is happening in the mid-cycle redistricting is horrifying, and there is an active effort to disenfranchise Black elected officials. It’s unconscionable. It is unbelievable,” Ferguson added, but “what we have to do in Maryland is protect Marylanders.”
Sen. Cheryl C. Kagan (D-Montgomery), an early and steadfast Moore supporter, said she doesn’t believe the votes are there, so indulging the governor’s request would waste limited time in a 90-day session. “Other important legislation addressing critical issues would die when we ran out of time,” she said.
Other senators cast doubt on that argument.
“We’ve never had a debate on the issue, not even in the back rooms,” said Sen. Arthur Ellis (D-Charles). “I believe if we have an honest debate on this issue, it will pass on the floor.”
Moore said he has no plans to relent.
“Democracy means we debate. Democracy means we test ideas. Democracy means compromise. And then democracy means that we vote — that is the basis of democracy,” he said. “And what we are seeing right now from the Maryland Senate is not democracy. What we’re seeing from the Maryland Senate is the hiding — behind archaic rules and almost this boss mentality that I think people don’t like about politics.”
Yasmeen Abutaleb and Marianna Sotomayor contributed to this report.
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