Both parties shed hundreds of thousands of primary votes Tuesday. The Republican collapse, in a contested nine-candidate race, is the number that should keep Cox’s campaign up at night.
By Michael Phillips | MDBayNews
Dan Cox won the Republican nomination for governor Tuesday night. He also did it with nearly half the votes he got the last time he ran.
That sentence deserves to sit on its own for a moment.
In 2022, Cox secured the Republican gubernatorial nomination with 153,423 votes — 52 percent of a field that included a well-funded, Hogan-endorsed opponent in Kelly Schulz and drew a total of 295,068 Republican primary ballots statewide. It was a competitive, high-profile race with national attention, significant spending on both sides, and clear ideological stakes.
Tuesday’s Republican primary drew 172,602 total votes — a drop of 122,466 from four years ago, a decline of more than 41 percent. Cox’s own total fell to 78,290. He received roughly 75,000 fewer votes than he did in 2022, in a race with eight other candidates rather than one serious opponent.
Democrats also shed votes — significantly. Wes Moore drew 361,620 votes, with token challenger Eric Felber pulling 50,307, for a Democratic primary total of 411,927. In 2022, approximately 671,000 Democrats voted in the gubernatorial primary — meaning the Democratic party lost roughly 259,000 primary voters as well, a 39 percent decline.
But the two collapses are not the same thing, and treating them as equivalent misses the story entirely.
Moore ran virtually unopposed. Felber, a physician who ran previously against Jamie Raskin in a congressional primary, was never a serious challenger. A precipitous drop in Democratic primary turnout when the sitting governor faces no credible opposition is entirely expected — there is simply less reason to show up. The Democratic decline is a turnout artifact of an uncontested race.
The Republican decline happened in a nine-candidate field with genuine choices on the ballot. Voters had Cox, Hale — a credentialed businessman who made a real run at it — Myrick, Brunner, and five others. Republicans had every reason to participate. Fewer of them did anyway.
And consider what that means in raw terms heading into November: Moore drew 411,927 votes running essentially unopposed. The entire Republican primary field combined drew 172,602. Moore’s uncontested primary total is 2.39 times larger than every Republican gubernatorial vote cast Tuesday. That ratio is not a prediction — general elections are different animals — but it is a number that reflects the organizational and enthusiasm gap Cox will need to close.
Cox’s own collapse is particularly stark. From 153,423 in 2022 to 78,290 in 2026 — a 49 percent drop in his personal vote total. He won with a smaller percentage of a dramatically smaller electorate, against a weaker field than the one Schulz represented four years ago.
Roughly 830,000 registered Republicans did not vote Tuesday. Some are chronic non-primary voters. Some are genuinely disaffected — voters who showed up for Cox in 2022, watched him lose by 32 points, and saw no reason to go through it again. Some are the Hogan Republicans who backed Schulz last time and found no comparable candidate this cycle.
That last category matters most. Those voters are not lost — they are available. They are frustrated about electricity bills that have increased 44 percent since 2020. They are living under a $1.6 billion tax increase. They are watching a governor whose approval has slipped below 50 percent for the first time try to explain a $1.5 billion structural deficit.
Senate Minority Leader Steve Hershey framed it Tuesday night: “The question before voters is not what happened four years ago, it is whether they are better off today than they were when Governor Moore took office.”
The 122,000 Republicans who stayed home Tuesday were around in 2022. They voted then. They can vote again. The question is whether Cox’s campaign can make this race about Moore’s record rather than their own reluctance — and whether the voters who went missing between 2022 and 2026 see enough reason in November to come back.
The numbers say they exist. Finding them is the whole ballgame.
Sources: Maryland State Board of Elections unofficial results; Associated Press via Fox Baltimore; Maryland SBE 2022 Official Primary Turnout Report.
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