Maryland Gov. Wes Moore gets new challenger in Green Party's Andy Ellis
BALTIMORE – Green Party candidate Andy Ellis will throw his hat into the ring of growing challengers to Maryland Gov. Wes Moore, as he seeks to inspire progressive change in Annapolis for years to come.
Ellis, a Northeast Baltimore resident and Nielsen business intelligence lead, is realistic about his slim chance of victory as a third-party candidate. He hopes his influence on issues like corporate oversight and reparations for slavery will inspire the two major parties to incorporate new policy ideas in future elections.
'If Larry Hogan or [Bob] Ehrlich are the Republican candidates, then it's gonna be a lot closer than it was when Dan Cox was the Republican candidate,' Ellis said. 'And there's gonna be more ability to leverage one of the two parties to take on the issues that we're raising and some voters will care about.'
Ellis has criticized Moore for refusing to take a public position on Senate Bill 587, which would establish a commission to study reparations payments for the descendants of slaves.
He believes Maryland is in a unique position to lead on this issue because slavery was legal in the state until 1864. But since Maryland never seceded from the Union during the Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation did not apply to slaves held here.
'I don't imagine that he wants this to be one of the issues that either Democrats or Republicans can saddle him with,' Ellis said of Moore, hinting the governor's potential run for president in 2028 could be the reason he has not taken a strong position on reparations. 'I think he wishes that this doesn't land on his desk.'
The governor's office declined to respond to Ellis' suggestion that Moore, Maryland's first Black governor, wants to avoid a tough political decision on the reparations bill. Publicly, Moore has said he will not run for president in 2028.
Earlier in his career, Ellis coached Towson University's debate team to a national championship in 2008. Two members of that team, Deven Cooper and Dayvon Love, became the first Black students to ever win a national policy debate championship.
Now the public policy director of Leaders Of A Beautiful Struggle, a Baltimore-based group promoting 'Black Independence,' Love told The Baltimore Sun he's confident in the ability of Ellis, who is white, to raise issues on behalf of Black communities.
'He is unique being a white person that has engaged in a rigorous study of Black freedom struggle, and the intellectual, political [and] cultural resources of revolutionary movements,' Love said of Ellis.
On the economy, Ellis proposes tax increases for income brackets beyond the $500,000-a-year threshold adopted by Moore's budget plan this year. He wants to use this revenue from upper-middle income taxpayers to keep funding the state's Blueprint education plan, as well as provide tax incentives for manufacturing and local small businesses to expand within the state.
On energy, Ellis implied his opposition to 'extension cord' projects like the Maryland Piedmont Reliability Project, arguing Virginia data centers would primarily benefit from its proposed high-voltage transmission lines. He says the state needs to take on energy corporations like Baltimore Gas and Electric to protect consumers from high prices.
'I also think that we need to figure out if there is a way to wrest control of the energy supply back from the corporations that we've largely allowed to consolidate market share,' Ellis said.
Moore has not officially filed his candidacy for reelection in 2026, but he has said multiple times publicly that he plans to run for a second term.
So far, just one candidate has filed to run for governor next year: Republican John Myrick, who chose former state Del. Brenda Thiam, R-Washington, as his running mate for lieutenant governor. Ed Hale Sr., a former banking executive who owns the Baltimore Blast indoor soccer team, has announced his intent to run on the Democratic ticket but not yet filed his candidacy.
Ellis told The Sun he hasn't filed because he is still choosing his running mate. Maryland law requires gubernatorial and lieutenant governor candidates to file together on a ticket.
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