MARYLAND — Republican gubernatorial candidate Dan Cox started and ended last week avoiding Marylanders, skipping out on community leaders to fly to Mar-a-Lago on Sunday and standing up his own supporters to hide from press on Saturday. Prior to the revelation that the Cox campaign uploaded footage to a campaign social media page showing him being presented and accepting a gift from the Maryland Proud Boys, Cox’s week had been marked by uncharacteristic silence following his legally dubious Mar-a-Lago fundraiser.
A week after Cox’s trip to Florida, a new report reveals that former president Donald Trump has convened a series of in-person meetings and conference calls to discuss laying the groundwork to challenge the 2022 midterm election results. Pennsylvania, where Cox helped attempt to overturn the 2020 election, “has grabbed his interest most keenly,” Rolling Stone reports, “but it’s not just one meeting and it’s not just Philly.”
In mid-September, as Cox led an effort to cast doubt on Maryland’s 2022 election process, he boasted that he and Trump talk “regularly” about his campaign. Then, earlier this month, the Baltimore Sun reported that Cox’s campaign is coordinating with an election conspiracy group to recruit 600 volunteers to launch an Arizona-style hand count audit the morning after Election Day.
“It has always been clear that Dan Cox is taking a page from the Trump playbook but it now appears that he may be taking direct instruction,” said Maryland Democratic Party spokesperson Ernest Bailey. “Cox claims to be a patriot but he has been literally plotting against American democracy for years now– Nothing could be more unpatriotic than that.”