Post # 396 – Dan Cox’s short march to defeat

Last Wednesday I got a phone call from a political person, and he asked me about the latest Cox Moore poll showing Moore winning by about 27 percentage points. I told him very bluntly that Cox was going to get an ass whipping in November. He just started laughing.

Cox has been extremely dismissive of this poll since it came out but ironically when the first part of the poll came out last Monday, that slightly more than half of voters describe themselves as really struggling financially or just getting by Dan Cox praised the poll conducted by Zenith Research for the Blended Public Affairs Partnership with Perry Jacobson.

But on Tuesday, the same company that did this poll says Cox will get an ass whipping in November and he attacks that part of the poll. When the people were polled about who they wanted for governor they were not on the Dan Cox train and suddenly he decided he had to dismiss the poll.

Two different things can be 100% right. People can have BG&E/economic anxiety and think Cox is a nut. Maryland is a state of middle temperament, and Cox’s temperament is on the far right.

The problem with the Cox campaign and the Maryland Republican Party is they can’t put out their own poll because they just don’t have the money to do it, or as my parents used to say they don’t have a pot to pee in.

In September UMBC Institute of Politics will be doing a poll organized by Professor Miliah Kromer. She’s been polling in Maryland politics for a long time and is the gold standard of polling in Maryland. What’s Cox going to say when her poll shows that he’s losing by more than 20 points.

There are legitimate economic issues for people to say why they won’t vote for Governor Moore, unfortunately for Republicans, Dan Cox is the standard bearer for the party, beating Ed Hale and a variety of others in the republican primary. This is on those voters and on Nicole Harris the chair of the state Republican Party. Cox got beat badly the last time and in many ways, he is just coming back for more. While his supporters at the same time know he lost badly the last time, somehow they believe there will be a different outcome this time when there won’t be. Dan Cox is going to be Kevin Bacon in the movie Animal House. He’s going to get spanked really hard and in the end get run over. If Republicans in Maryland want a Ross Z. Pierpont running in election after election, at some point they need to enter a 12-step program and avoid Dan Cox at all costs. Think of the anchor George Mahoney was around the Democratic Party during the 1950s and 60s. That’s the republican future with Dan Cox running in election after election.

Cox’s keyboard warriors post multiple times a day on a variety of Dan Cox Facebook pages and on Inside Maryland Politics (and trust me it seems like they do post 10 times a day) that Cox should win and Wes Moore a terrible person. But every time I offer to bet any of these Cox people that Cox will lose, no one wants to take my bet.

Ed Hale is more committed to rebuilding the Maryland GOP than either of the Harris’s or the keyboard warriors.

Dan Cox has had almost two months since the republican primary to start to move the needle, but the only people he is engaging with are his own supporters on social media. He’s not running ads on television, he’s going to a lot of events in safe red areas, but he has not increased support in any way. It reminds me of Ben Jealous’s campaign in 2018 for governor. In September of that year a poll came out showing Jealous was going to lose big time and I told someone at the Washington Post this race is over and it was.

You’re not going to see a lot of polling really in this race at all because it is so uncompetitive. I remember in 2014 when Larry Hogan was running against Anthony Brown there was not a lot of polling done because the early polling had Brown winning big. In mid-October of 2014 there was a poll showing Brown up by 7 points. Hogan was closing the gap but no one else polled this race publicly. Many media outlets were asleep and failed to poll towards the end of the race. Hogan’s private polling showed him in the last week surging, leading to his upset victory.

If I were Republicans over the next 90 days if I wanted to drive turn out to help some of my candidates for other offices, knowing they had Dan Cox’s candidacy hanging over them like an albatross, I would focus on the constitutional amendment issue and make that the driving issue that will engage voters and independents. This is going to be a low turnout general election because voters are very dissatisfied. They have a Trump hangover, Cox is the GOP candidate, the economy isn’t very good, the Iran cluster disaster, and when affordability is big issue that says that people are unhappy. The party at the national level always gets the credit/blame for the economy.

Nicole Harris doesn’t have the ability to do fix things. State Republicans are not better off than they were four years ago, before she took over as party chair. Dragging out Bob and Kendall Ehrlich to boost republican turn out won’t get you very far. During the primary Cox antagonized Larry Hogan, Ed Hale and his running mate Tyrone Keys. Cox got very personal with attacks on Hale and Keyes and called Governor Hogan, “Lockdown Larry” and Cox’s supporters and Cox cannot understand or comprehend why their supports have no interest in helping him. How is that behavior supposed to encourage Republicans to vote for Dan Cox with his insurrectionist background.

Far right republican voters created this mess and delusion that Cox can win. They failed to learn from the beating Cox took in 2022. The people who will suffer the most are quality republican candidates trying to get elected. To them I say practice this phrase over and over again: “I am running my own race and do not have the time to focus on anything else.” Johnny O did this in 2018 when running for Baltimore County Executive with Ben Jealous at the top of the ticket. He won.