Maryland GOP candidates reject campaigning with their party's top state nominee

On Thursday, The Daily Recordreported that several Republican candidates in Maryland are refusing to campaign with Dan Cox, the GOP's nominee for governor in the state.

"Republican Allan Kittleman is squaring off against Democrat Howard County Executive Calvin Ball in November. Four years ago, Ball ousted Kittleman, a moderate Republican, in a year that was bad for nearly every incumbent Republican county executive in the state," reported Bryan P. Sears. "'I’ll be doing campaign events actually with Governor Hogan,' said Kittleman when asked if he would be campaigning with Cox ... Kittleman [also] said Thursday, he is not voting for Cox."

Meanwhile, "Harford County Executive Barry Glassman, who is running for comptroller, also said he will not campaign with Cox," the report noted. "The open question of unity and Cox’s hard-right political stances have Democrats dreaming of racking up victories up and down the ticket. Cox would need about one in five Democrats to vote for him to have a chance of winning."

Cox won a bitterly contested primary against Kelly Schulz, the preferred candidate of outgoing Republican Gov. Larry Hogan, who himself has sharply criticized Cox and accused former President Donald Trump of "colluding with Democrats" to get him the nomination — a reference to an ad by the Democratic Governors Association that some claim was a deliberate effort to make Cox look more appealing to Trump voters and get him selected to make the race easier for Democrats to win.

A far-right state delegate who previously led a short-lived effort to impeach Hogan for instituting public health measures around COVID-19, Cox was present at the January 6 "Stop the Steal" rally that preceded the attack on the U.S. Capitol, and has called former Vice President Mike Pence a "traitor" for not throwing out President Joe Biden's votes and declaring Trump the winner. He also gave a speech at a rally for supporters of the QAnon conspiracy theory.

Cox's Democratic opponent is Wes Moore, a bestselling author supported by Oprah Winfrey.