Cox says Maryland voters will split tickets for a balanced government

Among those at Cox’s victory party was his father, Gary Cox, 70.

“I named my son Daniel after the prophet Daniel in the Bible,” he said in an interview. “I was awestruck that it’s possible for people of faith to live their faith and, in the process, to impact the culture around them for good.”

Cox dismisses the notion that his Trump ties will sink him in November in a state where the former president got 32% of the vote against Democrat Joe Biden in 2020.

“Well, I hope they keep trying to smear me on that,” Cox said in an interview. An anti-Trump strategy didn’t work last year in Virginia, he said, where Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin won support from Trump partisans and more moderate voters.

Cox said he believed Marylanders of all political stripes would be willing to split their tickets, supporting him while voting for Democratic legislative candidates.

“The reason for that is they want to make sure they have a balanced government,” Cox said. “That’s number one. The second part of this is the Biden administration has so destroyed Maryland’s economy.”

On primary night, those at Schulz’s party increasingly saw the impending doom as more and more votes were tallied. They worried how someone as polarizing and allied with Trump as Cox could win in the general election.

“He’s so far to the right, his biggest qualification is he supports Trump,” said David Garner, 55, of Perry Hall. “That’s great if you like Trump, but in Maryland we’re 2-to-1 Democrat.”

Garner, who retired last year from the Baltimore County Police Department where he was a member of the SWAT team, said he supported Schulz because she is a “common sense conservative” like Hogan. Also, Schulz’s running mate, Jeff Woolford, is his brother-in-law.

Craig Lewis, 22, of Lutherville, was among a few who lingered at Schulz party after she addressed the crowd. It was a speech that was both defiant — she didn’t concede — and valedictory, as she thanked her family and volunteers.

“I think it’s a wake-up call for the Maryland Republican Party,” said Lewis, who works as an aide to the GOP caucus in the state House of Delegates.

He said he thought Schulz ran as if she didn’t have an opponent and underestimated Cox’s potential for winning. Lewis said many didn’t know who Schulz was, but they saw Cox’s signs all around and knew him to be a Trump supporter.

“Trump’s blessing does a lot, even in as blue a state as Maryland,” Lewis said.

Now, though, he said the party needs to coalesce around its nominee, even if he thinks Cox could lose in a landslide.