GOP governor candidate Cox seeks to distance himself from Trump’s election denial

Maryland’s Republican candidate for governor said in a Thursday radio interview that Joe Biden “probably” won the 2020 election, as President Donald Trump and other Republicans continue to cast doubt on the result.

Dan Cox told WBAL NewsRadio hosts that he does not totally embrace the president’s election conspiracies, a change from 2022, when Cox — then endorsed by Trump — told The Banner, “I believe the election was stolen.”

“I have gotten pegged with saying I’m a denier,” Cox said on WBAL NewsRadio under questioning from host Bryan Nehman. Cox said Biden was certified the winner.

“You’ll notice that in the 2020 election, even though I got questioned because I questioned, like, Georgia, at the end of the day ... I called the president ‘President Biden.’ Why? Because he was the president,” Cox said.

Cox also said that “I’m not an expert on elections” and that he tries to shy away from “national issues.”

Cox’s interview seems to be an effort to distance himself from Trump, who is widely unpopular in Maryland. But it also highlights one of Cox’s biggest political weaknesses, coming on the same day that the president plans to once again dispute his 2020 loss in a primetime speech, according to The New York Times and other national outlets.

And the interview teed up Gov. Wes Moore and other Democrats to inject the issue into this year’s rematch of the 2022 gubernatorial election, which Moore won by more than 30 points.

“It’s no surprise that MAGA Dan Cox continues his long-standing history of spreading conspiracies about our fair and free elections,” said Steuart Pittman, chair of the Maryland Democratic Party.

Cox was in the thick of those conspiracies in 2020 and 2021, when he was a state delegate.

Cox traveled to Pennsylvania — which Trump lost — to engage in post-election review efforts.

And on Jan. 6, 2021, Cox boarded a bus to Washington, D.C., with other Western Maryland Republicans ahead of Congress’ certification of Biden’s election win. Cox has said he went only to hear Trump speak and left before a mob stormed the Capitol building and disrupted the certification.

That afternoon, he posted on social media that then-Vice President Mike Pence was a “traitor.”

Cox now appears to be softening his stance.

But Trump continues — with little evidence — to push the issue. Moore seized the opportunity to criticize the president.

Trump is talking about conspiracy theories “because he knows he can’t talk about the issues,” Moore told reporters this week while campaigning in Georgia, one of the states central to questions about the 2020 election. Trump called Georgia’s secretary of state and urged him to “find” thousands more votes.

“That’s what losers do,” Moore said of Trump’s speech. “Losers complain and they bang on tables and they make the argument that the only way they could lose is if someone cheated. That’s what losers do.”