Who is Governor Wes Moore? The Democratic Rising Star Being Called the ‘Next Obama’

Gov. Wes Moore, 45, earned a coveted speaking spot on the third night of the Democratic National Convention, right after iconic media personality Oprah Winfrey.

It comes just two years after Moore won his first-ever race for public office, when he became governor of Maryland in 2023 with the support of former President Barack Obama.

Moore began his speech by recalling a phone call from Vice President Kamala Harris after the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore collapsed earlier this year, killing six workers.

He talked about how he went down the wrong path as a child and was handcuffed at age 11 and is now the first black governor of Maryland.

Despite being relatively new to public office, Wednesday’s speech won’t be Moore’s first onstage address at the Democratic National Convention. Moore also spoke at the DNC in the summer of 2007, where he endorsed Barack Obama for the party’s nomination for what eventually became the former president’s first term, starting in 2008.

More than a year into his term as governor, Moore faced a major test when a ship collided with a key support beam of the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore, causing it to collapse.

“Six Marylanders who were on the bridge in the middle of the night fixing potholes were killed. And one of the first phone calls I got that morning started with these three words: ‘Governor, it’s Kamala,'” Moore said onstage in Chicago on Wednesday night.

“Making America great doesn’t mean telling people, ‘You’re not wanted,’” Moore continued.

“Making America great means saying that the ambitions of this country would not be complete without your help,” he said. “It is the legacy of those workers who patched holes in a bridge while we slept. Who were born in another country but knew that America was big enough for them, too.”

Moore served as a White House Fellow to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice beginning in February 2006 during the George W. Bush administration. His background, however, is primarily in business and the media, and his foray into politics is relatively new.

In 2013, More indicated that he had “no interest” in running for public office and instead wanted to focus on his business and volunteer work.

He served in the United States Army from 1998 and completed his service in 2014. During his service, Moore was activated following the September 11 terrorist attacks and deployed to Afghanistan in 2005 and 2006.

Moore rose to the rank of captain while serving in the 82nd Airborne Division.

During his speech on the DNC stage, Moore slammed Trump for dodging the draft, alleging bone spurs.

“I joined the army when I was 17. I was actually too young to sign the papers. I had to ask my mother to sign the papers for me because I don’t have any bony prominences,” the governor joked.

“I led soldiers into combat in Afghanistan,” he continued. “And my training taught me that you never learn anything about someone when times are easy. You learn everything you need to know about someone when times are hard and the temperature is rising.”

‘And America, I saw with my own eyes that Kamala Harris is the right person to lead at this time.’

Moore was CEO of the charity Robin Hood Foundation from 2017 to 2021, during which time he moved his family to New York City to help address poverty in the largest city in the United States.

Moore founded the television production company Omari Productions in 2010 and has created content for networks including PBS, HBO, NBC and the Oprah Winfrey Network.

In Maryland’s 2023 gubernatorial election, Moore, a Democrat, replaced Republican Gov. Larry Hogan, whose term had expired.

Moore is the son of a broadcast journalist and media professional.

His mother was the daughter of immigrants from Cuba and Jamaica. His father died when Moore was only three years old, prompting his mother to uproot him and his two sisters from Maryland and move to the Bronx borough of New York City to live with her parents.

When his grades declined and he became involved in petty theft, Moore’s mother enrolled him in Valley Forge Military Academy and College.

And in 1998, he graduated with an associate degree and met the requirements to enter the U.S. Army Early Commissioning Program. He was commissioned a second lieutenant in Military Intelligence in the Army Reserve.

Moore graduated from Johns Hopkins University in 2001 with a bachelor’s degree in international relations and economics. He also played wide receiver for the university’s football team for two seasons.

In 2004, he received his master’s degree in international relations as a Rhodes Scholar. His thesis was on the rise and consequences of radical Islam in the Western Hemisphere.

Moore showed an early interest in political life, interning for then-Baltimore Mayor Kurt Schmoke in 1998 and 1999. He also interned at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security under Secretary Tom Ridge in the Bush Jr. administration.

Moore married Dawn Flythe in 2007 and the couple have two children – Mia, 13, and James, 10 – and a dog appropriately named Tucker Balti.

As part of his television career, Moore drew on his own history in American service and produced a three-part series called Coming Back with Wes Moore for PBS, which followed the lives and experiences of veterans returning to civilian life.

He also produced All the Difference, a PBS documentary released in September 2016 that followed the lives and experiences of two black men from Chicago’s South Side from high school, through college and beyond.

That same month, Moore launched Future City, an interview talk show on Baltimore’s WYPR station.

In 2013, the same year that Moore indicated he would not run for public office, Attorney General Doug Gansler claimed he was considering the Maryland businessman as his running mate for the 2014 gubernatorial election.

Moore appeared to open up more to a political career in 2015, following the protests in Baltimore following the police killing of Freddie Gray.

Moore said in April 2015 that the riots following Gray’s death were “long overdue.”

He called on Baltimore to “seize this moment to address systemic issues and grow” amid growing attention to the unequal treatment of American minorities by law enforcement and the rise of the national Black Lives Matter movement.

Moore attended Gray’s funeral and posted a tweet in April, on the eighth anniversary of his death, describing his death as “a turning point, not only for those who knew Gray personally, but for the entire city.”

In February 2017, then-Governor Hogan nominated Moore to serve on the University System of Maryland’s board of trustees.

Moore was appointed to Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott’s transition team in October 2020.

And in January 2021, Maryland House Speaker Adrienne Jones consulted with Moore to craft her “black agenda.”