Brandon Scott endorsed Bill Ferguson. Wes Moore couldn’t. The difference says everything.
By Michael Phillips | MDBayNews
Brandon Scott endorsed Bill Ferguson this week. That’s not surprising — the two have known each other for nearly 20 years, came up together in Baltimore public service long before either held their current offices, and have built a genuine governing partnership in the city they both actually grew up in and chose to stay in.
What’s worth examining is why Wes Moore couldn’t do the same thing Scott just did.
It’s not because Moore and Ferguson are competing against each other. They aren’t. Scott isn’t running for governor. Moore isn’t running for State Senate. There was no zero-sum calculation that required Moore to withhold his endorsement. He endorsed 86 incumbent House Democrats this week. He endorsed county executives, state’s attorneys, and legislative challengers. He found room on his list for candidates up and down the ballot across the entire state.
He could not find room for the President of the Maryland Senate.
Scott could look past the redistricting fight because Scott is secure enough in who he is and what he’s built that a policy disagreement doesn’t require him to punish someone. Moore apparently is not.
The Agreement He Made and Broke
This wasn’t a case of Moore simply declining to weigh in on a contested primary. Moore and Ferguson had an agreement. A mutual endorsement deal, in place as recently as last Sunday. Text messages obtained by The Baltimore Banner showed their teams coordinating rollout details — photos for mailers, scheduling, logistics. Ferguson attended Moore’s reelection campaign launch at the B&O Railroad Museum on May 2. He sat in the audience while Moore made his pitch for another term.
Then Ferguson went to Moore’s house to finalize things. And Moore pulled the endorsement anyway.
Moore’s campaign spokesperson, Carter Elliott IV, responded with a statement saying the governor and Ferguson “continue to communicate consistently, and work alongside one another to accomplish big things in Maryland.” The statement did not acknowledge the broken agreement. It did not explain the decision. It offered the kind of language that is designed to sound collaborative while doing the opposite of collaborating. If anything, the delay and the following statement reek of Moore demanding Ferguson push his redistricting plan.
That is not honest communication. It is the language of someone who knows what he did, doesn’t want to defend it, and is hoping the framing holds.
It didn’t. The Banner had the text messages.
Ferguson Was Right and Moore Knows It
The redistricting fight is the stated reason for the fallout. Moore wanted Maryland to redraw its congressional map mid-decade to eliminate the state’s only Republican congressional district. Ferguson, who served on Moore’s own redistricting advisory panel, blocked it in the Senate. He argued the move was legally reckless — that Maryland’s 2021 map had already been struck down as extreme partisan gerrymandering, and a new attempt would face the same judicial fate, potentially producing a court-ordered map worse for Democrats than the current one.
Moore dismissed that reasoning. Hakeem Jeffries flew to Annapolis to lobby Ferguson personally. Moore framed the disagreement publicly as a question of whether Democrats were willing to fight Donald Trump.
On the same Friday that Moore’s endorsement snub was dominating Maryland political coverage, the Virginia Supreme Court struck down that state’s Democratic redistricting referendum 4-3. Virginia Democrats had spent months and tens of millions of dollars on a map projected to flip four Republican House seats. The court threw it out entirely, ruling the legislature had violated procedural requirements — exactly the kind of legal vulnerability Ferguson had been warning about.
If Moore is capable of honest reflection, he already knows Ferguson was right. The question is whether he is capable of it. The pulled endorsement, the broken agreement, the carefully worded non-answer from his spokesperson — none of it suggests a man who is reckoning honestly with being wrong. It suggests a man who is managing appearances.
Scott Can Afford Honesty. Moore Can’t.
Moore’s political identity depends on a version of himself that requires constant maintenance.
Brandon Scott’s endorsement post was direct and personal. Twenty years. Built something together. Proud of it. Early voting June 11.
He didn’t parse it. He didn’t hedge. He didn’t need a spokesperson to explain what he meant. He said what was true and put his name on it.
Moore is not capable of that right now, and the reason is worth stating plainly: Moore’s political identity depends on a version of himself that requires constant maintenance. He was born in Takoma Park, grew up in the Bronx, came back to Maryland as an adult, and built a public profile — and eventually a political career — largely on a memoir about his family’s Maryland roots and his own personal transformation. That is a legitimate story. But it is a constructed political identity in a way that Ferguson’s and Scott’s are not.
Ferguson has been in the same Baltimore district for 15 years. Scott grew up in Baltimore and never left. Their credibility is not a narrative. It is just where they live and what they’ve done.
Moore’s credibility depends on the narrative holding. That means he cannot easily admit when he was wrong, cannot easily acknowledge when someone else’s judgment was better than his, and cannot afford the kind of direct honesty that Scott demonstrated this week — because honesty, for Moore, carries the risk of puncturing the story he needs people to believe about him.
The redistricting push was, at least in part, about Moore’s national profile. Hakeem Jeffries did not fly to Annapolis because he cares about Andy Harris’s congressional district. He flew there because Moore has positioned himself as a 2028 presidential prospect, and national Democrats have been treating him accordingly. Winning on redistricting would have been a marquee accomplishment for that profile. Losing quietly, because a Baltimore lifer told him it was a bad idea, is not the story Moore wants to tell.
So instead of acknowledging Ferguson’s judgment, Moore punished it. And instead of honoring an agreement he made, he broke it and issued a statement designed to obscure what he had done.
Scott, who has his own complicated relationship with Moore and his own political pressures, looked at Ferguson and said: twenty years, built something together, proud of it. No hedging required.
The difference between those two responses is not political strategy. It is character.
Reporting for this article draws on coverage from The Baltimore Banner, Maryland Matters, WYPR, Fox Baltimore, WMAR-2 News, and the Associated Press. The Virginia redistricting ruling was reported by NBC News, the Virginia Mercury, NPR, The Hill, and WTOP. Ferguson’s endorsement post was published on his verified X account (@SenBillFerg). Moore’s campaign statements were provided through spokesperson Carter Elliott IV.
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