• Introduction-500 Days Until Election Day

On June 21st—500 days before Maryland’s 2026 election—as I drove down the Eastern Shore to spend the day with voters at the Eastern Shore Juneteenth Festival in Salisbury, I reflected on how far this campaign has come and what it will take to meet the moment ahead. When we launched in 2022, the goal was simple but ambitious: reach 1% of the vote and protect Green ballot access.

But as the political and economic crisis deepens—and as both major parties fail to respond—the opportunity before us has grown. This summer, we aren’t just working to survive. We’re building a movement that can work to win 100,000 votes, shift Maryland politics, and show what a multiparty democracy can look like.

Around the country and across Maryland, political polarization and economic inequality are high. Anxiety around affordability, jobs, and housing is rampant, and dissatisfaction with Democrats, Republicans, and government is growing.

War, genocide, authoritarianism, and climate catastrophe have shown many voters the inadequacy of our current political order.

Except for a few bright moments, hope is fading.

In Maryland, Governor Wes Moore is disappointing many of the grassroots and progressive voters who supported his campaign in 2022, and his national ambitions seem to be driving his Maryland decisions.

On the GOP side of the aisle a MAGA freedom caucus has made a lot of noise but is wildly unpopular in Maryland and Larry Hogan's return for a third Governor's race seems to be the hope of most Republicans.

We are in a unique moment of opportunity.

Our  plan, "500 Days Out: Charting A Course For Building a Green Future in Maryland." lays out a pathway to seize the moment of opportunity and to move  toward a multiparty Maryland that is more democratic, more just, more peaceful and more ecologically wise. From the plan:

This strategy document outlines two core goals:

A focused 100-day summer where we go all out to grow our volunteer base, introduce important policy programs, build the campaign infrastructure, raise the money to do the work, and expand our presence across the state.

A broad 500-day roadmap to build lasting infrastructure for a statewide Green surge—organizing in all 24 counties, running more candidates than ever, and getting 100,000 votes to transform the political conversation in Maryland.

A couple of weeks ago, I talked about the goal of getting 100,000 votes and having the best third party governor's campaign in Maryland since the end of the Civil War. I believe every bit of progress this campaign makes toward that goal, the closer we will get toward a healthier multiparty Maryland that works for everyone.

25,000 votes and securing ballot access is a great goal, it would be the best Maryland Green Party performance in a governor's race in our history. It would let us live on to fight on in the 2028 election and it would show that after 25 years, we as party have the staying power to keep offering Marylanders more choices at the ballot box.

100,000 votes would be something entirely different, it would be the beginning of a transformation in Maryland politics. 100,000 votes would be a clear signal that Marylanders are done with 'more of the same' and are ready to 'change the game.' It would mark a revival of democracy and a hope for a future where Maryland works for everybody.

The next 100 days will be crucial to determining whether this campaign can aim big and go for 100,000 votes or whether we need to focus on 25,000 votes to maintain our ballot access.

Much of what determines success will be fundraising.

The fundraising goal this summer is $50,000. That will allow us to start the fall with a few people on staff, which is essential at this point. It will also enable us to  contact voters all over the state and launch a digital ad campaign that will run through election day. That would be game changing for this campaign, and for the movement for a multiparty Maryland.

This is Part 1 of a two-part series assessing the state of our campaign, 500 days out from the election. Today, I introduce you to our 500 day plan and explore the biggest barrier to building a serious third-party campaign: resources.

Section 1: The Unique Resource Challenge of Third-Party Campaigns

Political scientists, commentators and consultants identify many reasons why third parties in the United States do not succeed. They point to ballot access laws, first past the post elections and party primaries. They suggest reforms like ranked choice voting and  fusion voting as prerequisites to third party success (often with no plan or interest to pursue those policies). Sometimes they even suggest there is a particularly binary element of American culture that prevents people from thinking outside the political box.

Dr. Bernard Tamas of Valdosta State University offers a different perspective in his 2018 book  The Demise and Rebirth of American Third Parties: Poised for a Political Revival. Tamas argues that there are two primary factors that uniquely explain the specific struggles faced by American third parties in the early 21st century. Resources and a shift to candidate centered campaigning.

(I will take up candidate centered campaigning in a different article, because today I want to focus on resources.)

In the book's conclusion Tamas argues

Second, while the vote for third-party candidates on the ballot has risen considerably over the past few decades, third parties have not been able to muster the waves of voter support more common in elections from 1870 to 1918. I argue that this is because of the type of resources parties need to run modern electoral campaigns. While parties could function more like social movements in the nineteenth and early twentieth century, electoral campaigns by the late twentieth century were waged over modern communication technology, requiring third parties to raise significant amounts of money or gain free media attention. (Pg 171)

I think the point that Tamas is making about the shift from social movements to modern electoral campaigns is a very important one. Most Greens, most of the left, and many Americans rightfully bemoan modern campaigning and the reliance on technology to contact voters, the saturation of the airwaves withpaid television advertising(often funded by shady PACs), and mainstream media's fixation of the two-party system.

But we can not wish these systems away. That campaign structure is shored up with billions of dollars, it is enforced through courts captured by corporate interests, it is taught and studied by academic institutions with existential commitments to its preservation, and it is maintained by the collective action of elected representatives of two parties with no incentive to dismantle it.

In a different section of the book Tamas makes the case

Third parties are therefore stuck in a vicious cycle of not being able to build resources because they are seen as unable to win, and unable to increase their voter support because they cannot raise resources. (Pg 154)

Identifying the way this cycle works is the first step to getting creative, building a plan, and doing something better.