Black candidates have never won a statewide office in Maryland. Is 2022 the year for a breakthrough win?

Wes Moore is careful to say that he’s not in the Maryland governor’s race to make history. But if the Democratic candidate is elected, he’d do just that: Moore would be the first Black man to serve as governor of Maryland. “It’s not lost on any of us, this idea that we’re all attempting to do something that hasn’t been done before, that I think the state is ready for,” said Moore, 43, who is facing Republican nominee Dan Cox, a one-term state delegate who is white. A handful of minor party and independent candidates will also be on the ballot.