OXON HILL, Md. (WBFF) — Gov. Wes Moore says he turned a Maryland deficit into a surplus. State budget forecasts tell a different story, and the governor is sidestepping questions about it.
When Moore took office in January 2023, Maryland had a $5 billion surplus. He said the state was in a “fortunate financial position.” By the 2025 legislative session, the state faced a $3.3 billion deficit, and Moore’s messaging changed, claiming the surplus wasn’t real because of one-time federal COVID funds.
A supporter holds a “Leave No One Behind” placard, a campaign slogan used by Maryland Gov. Wes Moore, at his reelection kickoff rally at the B&O Museum in Baltimore. (Gary Collins/Spotlight on Maryland)
And yet the messaging changed again by the end of that session, which resulted in a record $1.68 billion tax and fee hike to close the deficit. Since then, Moore has touted that he turned a deficit into a surplus, but he has yet to answer who turned the surplus back into a deficit, as Maryland is facing a handful of consecutive, billion-dollar shortfalls.
For three days, Spotlight on Maryland pressed Moore on that contradiction at public events across the state. Each time, access was cut off, questions were deflected or the governor left before answering, leaving a central piece of his reelection message unaddressed as Maryland’s long-term fiscal outlook worsens.
At a groundbreaking on Friday at the newly announced 168-acre Sparrows Point Container Terminal at Tradepoint Atlantic, the governor abruptly left as reporters were assembled to ask questions. He was loaded into the back of his black Chevy Suburban, with staff visibly seen ushering him into the vehicle.
At his reelection kickoff Saturday in West Baltimore at the B&O Railroad Museum, Rhyan Lake, a Moore’s campaign spokesperson, said he was not taking questions after another television station’s photographer was granted exclusive access.
Maryland Gov. Wes Moore, a Democrat, launched his reelection effort on Saturday, May 2, 2026, at the B&O Museum in Baltimore. (Gary Collins/Spotlight on Maryland)
Lake, a previous communications worker for former Vice President Kamala Harris’ unsuccessful presidential campaign, who also works in Moore’s taxpayer-funded governor’s office in Annapolis, claimed there was an issue with RSVPing before the event, and “time” was “extremely limited,” preventing Spotlight on Maryland from asking the governor questions.
Spotlight on Maryland’s media partners, FOX45 News and The Baltimore Sun, both pre-registered for the event. It is rare for most communications teams in Maryland to request RSVPs from the media for public events, though the governor’s team requests it frequently.
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On Monday, Spotlight on Maryland went to the Gaylord National Resort and Convention Center in Oxon Hill, where Moore was speaking on a panel at the SelectUSA Investment Summit, but was denied entry.
Organizers were asked if they were coordinating with the governor’s office on who they accepted into the federal government-sponsored trade event.
Responses to that question were not returned.
The claim that Moore turned a budget deficit into a surplus is a featured part of Moore’s political messaging as he asks Maryland voters for another four years.
It is not going to be enough just to win an election,” Moore told supporters at his campaign announcement. “We must send a message.”
That message has moved from campaign stages to the governor’s website, where Moore’s political biography and record have been shaped over time. In 2019, Moore’s website described the then-nonprofit leader at New York City-based Robin Hood as having grown up in Baltimore and the Bronx and referenced an “optioned” movie being produced about his namesake book, according to online archives.
Maryland Gov. Wes Moore at a groundbreaking for the new ‘Sparrows Point Container Terminal’ at TradePoint Atlantic’s Coke Point in Edgemere, Md., on Friday, May 1, 2026. (Gary Collins/Spotlight on Maryland)
Moore has frequently been criticized for claiming he grew up in Baltimore, even though he spent most of his childhood in the Bronx and at Valley Forge Military Academy in Wayne, Pennsylvania.
Today, the site says Moore “turned a budget deficit into a surplus” and “cut taxes for middle-class families.”
Moore’s deficit-to-surplus claim has not been confined to a website. It has been a repeated line in his public remarks for more than a year.
“Our economy is growing,” Moore said in a political action committee ad last summer. “We turned a budget deficit into a budget surplus.”
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In March 2025, Moore said, “Together, we are turning a three-plus-billion-dollar deficit into a cash surplus.” Weeks later, he said Maryland entered the legislative session with an “inherited structural deficit” and would leave “with a surplus.” In July, he said the state had turned a structural deficit “into a surplus.”
The state’s budget reality is more complicated.
Maryland lawmakers closed a $3.3 billion budget gap in 2025 through a mix of spending cuts, fund transfers, and a tax-and-fee package estimated to cost state taxpayers roughly $1.68 billion. Spotlight on Maryland has previously reported that the package hit businesses and consumers across the state, including a long-running Laurel coin business that said a new tax on bullion was pushing customers into neighboring states.
Moore’s office has defended the governor’s budget record, but nonpartisan fiscal analysts have continued to assert that Maryland’s structural problems were not erased.
The Department of Legislative Services’ 2026 fiscal briefing showed the administration’s budget plan relied on revenue and spending adjustments with a combined general fund impact of more than $1.5 billion. The same briefing projected a fiscal 2027 closing balance before legislative action of negative $1.4278 billion.
‘The 90 Day Report – A Review of the 2026 Legislative Session’: General Structural Budget Outlook for Fiscal 2027-2031 (Maryland Department of Legislative Services)
A separate Department of Legislative Services issue paper said fiscal 2025 closed with a $271 million general fund balance after revenues outpaced estimates but also warned of a projected cash shortfall of nearly $1.5 billion in fiscal 2027, growing to $3.2 billion in fiscal 2028 and approaching $4 billion in fiscal 2030 and 2031.
The budget strain follows another historic warning sign.
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In May 2025, Moody’s downgraded Maryland’s long-held top bond rating to Aa1, ending a more than 50-year streak at the highest level. The rating agency cited Maryland’s economic underperformance, high fixed costs, and exposure to federal employment and policy shifts.
Against that backdrop, Spotlight on Maryland sought to question Moore directly.
Maryland Gov. Wes Moore at a groundbreaking for the new ‘Sparrows Point Container Terminal’ at TradePoint Atlantic’s Coke Point in Edgemere, Md., on Friday, May 1, 2026.
While Spotlight on Maryland was unable to get a question to Moore verbally before he was ushered away on Friday, an attempt to shout a question about the claim occurred several hundred feet away after the governor’s team tried to reshuffle vehicles to drive the state’s chief executive away from the media’s view.
From a distance, Moore appeared to briefly acknowledge the question but did not answer.
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After three days of unsuccessful attempts to ask Gov. Moore about his now touted achievements as he traverses Maryland for reelection, Spotlight on Maryland asked John Myrick, a Republican, about the silence regarding his potential challenger in November.
The governor works for the people of Maryland,” Myrick said. “The questions [Spotlight on Maryland is] posing, Marylanders have a right to have answered.”
“As a public servant, as an elected governor of a state, he [Moore] is responsible to those people, and that means he is responsible for answering [Spotlight on Maryland’s] questions.
When asked for an interview on Monday, consistent with nearly weekly requests made over the past several years, Ammar Moussa, spokesperson for Moore’s government office, denied the campaign-related request.
“Most reporters, including from Fox News and other conservative outlets like your own, explain the frame of their story and what they are looking to address when asking for the governor’s time,” wrote Moussa. “Until you can do that and explicitly explain Sinclair owner David Smith’s involvement in your newsroom, we cannot grant your interview.”
Thanks,” Moussa added.
Hard hats and shovels line a groundbreaking ceremony on Friday, May 2, 2026, at TradePoint Atlantic in Edgemere, Md. (Gary Collins/Spotlight on Maryland)
As a commonly accepted ethical industry practice, Spotlight on Maryland does not provide predetermined questions to anyone interviewed. Moore’s campaign asked for more specifics prior to the governor’s office response.
“Every Marylander should take a moment and pause, and wonder why he will not answer those questions,” Myrick said.
Send news tips about this story or others to gmcollins@sbgtv.com or contact Spotlight on Maryland’s hotline at (410) 467-4670.
Follow Gary Collins on X and Instagram. Spotlight on Maryland is a collaboration between FOX45 News, WJLA in Washington, D.C., and The Baltimore Sun.
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