On the menu today: In Maryland, Democratic Governor Wes Moore is cruising to reelection, and just about every political observer thinks he’s going to run for president in 2028. So it feels fair to ask how he’s done on the biggest crisis to hit his state: the sudden collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge in March 2024. If you’re measuring by the standards of California’s high-speed rail, the rebuild is going quickly. By just about any other standard, the anticipated costs of the rebuilding project have skyrocketed, and the reopening date keeps getting pushed further into the future. And if this is how Moore manages a large, thorny problem as a governor . . . what would we expect of him in the Oval Office? Read on.
Wes Moore’s Bridge Too Far
Wes Moore is going to win reelection to a second term as governor of Maryland on November 3. It is not going to be close; polling puts Moore ahead of former state delegate and GOP nominee Dan Cox by almost 30 percentage points. Cox ran against Moore four years ago; Moore won, 64 percent to 32 percent. There are certain kinds of Republicans who can win gubernatorial races in Maryland, like Larry Hogan and Bob Ehrlich. Cox, who previously claimed that the 2020 election was stolen from Trump and who begrudgingly conceded in July that Joe Biden “probably” won the 2020 election, is not one of those Republicans.
Moore is widely expected to run for president in 2028, despite saying on Meet the Press last year, “I’m not running for president.” The Maryland governor is widely perceived to have a golden resume, despite the Washington Free Beacon repeatedly demonstrating how Moore has stretched the truth here and there.
Plenty of Democrats want Moore to run. The book, Fight: Inside the Wildest Battle for the White House, by Amie Parnes of The Hill and Jonathan Allen of NBC News, claims that when Joe Biden withdrew from the 2024 presidential race, former President Barack Obama wanted the Democrats to nominate a ticket of Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer and Moore.
Last month, in a podcast interview, Moore did not sound like a man who had no interest in running for president:
“I am going to be part of a bigger conversation going forward,” Moore, who turns 48 next month, said on a podcast hosted by CNN analyst and Democratic political consultant Bakari Sellers when asked about his plans for 2028.
“I think the state of Maryland and what we’ve done has justified that,” Moore went on, before adding that he is “focused on November and what we’re going to get done.”
“What we’ve done has justified that.”
At approximately 1:30 a.m. on March 26, 2024, a cargo ship leaving the Port of Baltimore struck the Francis Scott Key Bridge, causing the bridge to collapse, killing six members of a maintenance crew working on the roadway.
Back in 2024, Moore spoke at the Democratic national convention, focusing on how Vice President Kamala Harris had apparently played some key role in the response to the incident:
And one of the first phone calls that I got that morning started with these 3 words: ‘Gov, It’s Kamala.’ She said, I know you spoke to the president. And I want you to know we are here with you every step of the way. . . . I led soldiers in combat in Afghanistan. And my training, my training taught me that you never learn anything about anybody when times are easy. You learn everything you need to know about somebody when times are hard and when the temperature gets turned up and America I saw that Kamala Harris is the right one to lead in this moment firsthand.
That speech was given August 21, 2024; more than a few observers noticed that at that point, no reconstruction of the bridge had begun yet; in fact, at that time, the National Transportation Safety Board hadn’t even released its final report.
It is now October 2026. The bridge is not rebuilt, but rebuilding it in a bit more than two years would have been miraculous. At the beginning of the month, Moore announced the creation of the “Key Bridge Rebuild Dashboard, a new online resource that gives Marylanders a view of construction progress.”
That dashboard shows that the work platform North Main Line Trestle and South Main Line Trestle, are both 99 percent complete. (Trestles are short spans and frames.) The South Pylon is 55 percent complete, and the North Pylon is 26 percent complete. But there’s still quite a bit to do — permanent foundation piles, pier protection piles, designing the highway approaches on both sides, and then, of course, building the main span and the two approaches. In other words, there’s still a long, long way to go.
Back in May 2024, David Broughton, a spokesman for the Maryland Department of Transportation, said the state estimated that rebuilding the bridge would take just over four years — which would put its completion date around 2028 — at an estimated cost of between $1.7 billion and $1.9 billion.
In September 2025, Trump administration Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy wrote to Governor Moore, questioning whether the state intended to prioritize minority or women-owned businesses when awarding contracts:
One additional area of specific concern relates to whether Maryland intends to award contracts for the FSK Bridge project in a manner that relies on the race or sex of contractors. Any reliance on race- or sex-conscious factors in contracting decisions could introduce significant legal vulnerabilities and inefficiencies in the management of the project. As outlined in my “Follow the Law” letter of April 25, 2025, addressed to all recipients of DOT funding, the Equal Protection principles of the U.S. Constitution prohibit State and Federal governmental entities from discriminating on the basis of protected characteristics, including race and sex.
Duffy brought up that issue for a reason:
Kiewit Infrastructure Company listed in the informational section of its website for the bridge rebuild that it is “committed to meeting” the Disadvantaged Business Enterprise (DBE) goals set by Maryland for the project. The DBE goals that Moore established through executive order have set a 31.5 percent goal for contracts to be awarded to women-owned and minority businesses, soon after taking office in February 2023.
One might have expected Moore to respond with high dudgeon, but his response the next day didn’t mention anything about minority contracts:
We will continue to work with the Trump Administration to find ways to reduce costs and rebuild faster. We anticipate the price estimation process to be finalized in the coming months and we will provide regular updates from the Maryland Department of Transportation about the project’s status. In the meantime, we will continue to pursue litigation and make substantial financial contributions by way of advance construction costs and insurance settlement dollars to keep the project moving.
“The safety of the bridge and the sound stewardship of taxpayer dollars remain our top priority as we work to fully restore economic vitality — not only to the Port of Baltimore and the State of Maryland, but for the people across the country.
Then in November 2025, the Maryland Transportation Authority updated its estimates and calculated that rebuilding the bridge would cost anywhere from $4.3 billion to $5.2 billion, with an anticipated open-to-traffic date in late 2030. Within about a year and a half, the cost of rebuilding the bridge had more than doubled, and the reopening date was pushed back about two years.
Maryland changed the primary contractor for the bridge project in late April, after determining that the current firm’s proposal for the second phase of the project “significantly exceeded independent cost estimates.” Kiewit Corporation remains under contract to complete the first phase.
Keep in mind, you as a U.S. taxpayer are paying to rebuild the bridge, whether or not you live in the state of Maryland; the federal spending package passed in December 2024 covers the entire cost of rebuilding the bridge. At least, that’s the plan, for now.
In May of this year, Maryland’s lone Republican representative, Andy Harris, said he was told in an appropriations committee briefing that the final cost of the bridge rebuilding project would be considerably more — around $8 billion to $9 billion:
Harris said the new price tag means the deal for 100 percent federal funding will have to be renegotiated.
“I’m not sure that the federal government is going to pay that much, and the federal government will absolutely have the final say since it’s our money,” Harris said.
Harris blamed the price increase on union labor, cost of materials and requiring minority-owned businesses to be part of the project. . . .
The Governor’s Office declined to comment beyond a press release sent out last week stating estimates were discussed during confidential negotiations.
Note that in May, Maryland’s state attorney general, Anthony Brown, announced that the state had reached a final settlement of $2.25 billion with Grace Ocean Private Limited and Synergy Marine Pte Ltd., the owner and operator of the MV Dali, “resolving the state’s claims against those parties arising from the cargo ship’s collision with the bridge.” In other words, the ship operator had settled for a sum that would have covered the initial estimate of the cost of rebuilding the bridge. The state is still pursuing a claim against the shipbuilder, Hyundai Heavy Industries. The National Transportation Safety Board’s final report found Hyundai Heavy Industries to be at fault in causing the MV Dali’s loss of power and collision with the bridge.
Has the cost of bridge construction materials increased from May 2024? No doubt. Is it fairly normal for initial cost estimates on large infrastructures to underestimate the final costs? Yes. Do projects like this almost inevitably encounter unexpected complications and delays? Yes. The new bridge will have slightly wider lanes and will incorporate new structural elements designed to protect the new bridge’s piers from future vessel strikes — all of which will make it at least a bit more expensive.
But the estimated cost has nearly tripled on the low end and nearly quintupled on the high end, and what was supposed to be a just-over-four-year project is now looking like at least a six-year project.
The Eiffel Tower was built in a bit more than two years. The Pentagon was built in 16 months. The Empire State Building was built in a little more than a year.
In an op-ed in the Baltimore Sun in March, Moore boasted, “This is the fastest-moving large infrastructure project in the United States of America. And we plan on keeping it that way.”
(I suppose we’re not counting replacing a destroyed section of Interstate-95 near Philadelphia in twelve days as a large infrastructure project.)
So far, the entire project is federally funded. This is Maryland; there are no Republicans to accuse; the GOP is a small minority in both houses in the state legislature. There’s no one else around for Moore to blame.
And if his ambitions are fulfilled, he will have been in the Oval Office for nearly two years by the time the first car drives over the newly rebuilt Francis Scott Key Bridge.
Remember, if he runs for president in 2028, it will be because “what we’ve done has justified that.”
ADDENDUM: Our Will Swaim notices that out in California, Governor Gavin Newsom has signed legislation making Native American Day a paid state holiday, subject to legislative funding. This replaces what you likely call Columbus Day, or what some call “Indigenous Peoples’ Day.”
California no longer celebrates “Cesar Chavez Day” on account of his sexual predation of minors. It is now “Farmworkers Day.”