Dan Cox, Maryland's unsuccessful GOP gubernatorial nominee in last year's race against Gov. Wes Moore (D-MD), filed to run for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives on Monday.
Cox was a member of the Maryland state House of Delegates when he ran for governor as an unabashed supporter of former President Donald Trump. He won a contentious Republican primary fight against then-GOP Gov. Larry Hogan's centrist pick for the nomination, only to get crushed in the general election by a whopping 60%-37% margin.
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Cox first garnered statewide attention as a critic of Hogan's stay-at-home orders and mask mandates at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, eventually introducing articles of impeachment against him that went nowhere.
His embrace of Trump's false claims that the 2020 presidential election was stolen through widespread fraud, as well as organizing buses to transport constituents to the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, made him an easy target for Democrats in his gubernatorial bid. The Democratic Governors Association’s super PAC spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on airtime in the Baltimore TV market to air ads attacking Cox last summer.
Cox went on to serve as state Sen. Doug Mastriano's chief of staff after losing the governor's race. Mastriano similarly worked to support Trump's efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss. He also touted those ties in his own 2022 gubernatorial race, which he lost to Gov. Josh Shapiro (D-PA). Mastriano and Cox embraced each other's political styles during their races and campaigned together throughout the cycle.
Now, Cox has filed to run for Maryland's 6th Congressional District in next year's race. The area is currently represented by Rep. David Trone (D-MD), who is forgoing reelection to run for the open Senate seat being vacated by retiring Sen. Ben Cardin (D-MD).
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While a House seat would seem more winnable than a statewide Senate or gubernatorial race, Cox still faces an uphill path to win the seat. The 6th District has been in Democratic hands since 2012, when former Democratic Rep. John Delaney unseated former GOP Rep. Roscoe Bartlett after redistricting made the area markedly bluer. Delaney vacated the seat to run for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination and was replaced by Trone.
While Cox may once again have a path forward to his party's nomination, his general election win is no guarantee in the blue district. The Cook Political Report said upon news of Trone's decision not to seek reelection that its forecast for the seat would shift from "Solid Democrat" to "Likely Democrat," though the party is still projected to win in that district.