{"id":25763,"date":"2026-08-03T03:12:51","date_gmt":"2026-08-02T22:12:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=25763"},"modified":"2026-08-03T03:12:51","modified_gmt":"2026-08-02T22:12:51","slug":"govs-kevin-stitt-and-wes-moore-say-civility-can-win-general-elections-but-primaries-promote-partisanship","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=25763","title":{"rendered":"Govs. Kevin Stitt and Wes Moore say civility can win general elections but primaries promote partisanship"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><script>\r\n  atOptions = {\r\n    'key' : '644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6',\r\n    'format' : 'iframe',\r\n    'height' : 90,\r\n    'width' : 728,\r\n    'params' : {}\r\n  };\r\n<\/script>\r\n<script src=\"https:\/\/www.highperformanceformat.com\/644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<br \/>\n<br \/><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/media-cldnry.s-nbcnews.com\/image\/upload\/t_fit_1500w\/rockcms\/2026-08\/260802-kevin-stitt-wes-moore-vl-419p-60500e.jpg\" \/><\/p>\n<div>\n<p id=\"anchor-ee33df\" class=\"body-graf\">Govs. Kevin Stitt, R-Okla., and Wes Moore, D-Md., on Friday blamed partisan primaries for making politics more extreme and called for bringing back \u201cdignity\u201d in politics and government.<\/p>\n<p id=\"anchor-bac79b\" class=\"body-graf\">Asked whether dignity is a quality that could win a presidential election, Stitt told \u201cMeet the Press\u201d moderator Kristen Welker, \u201cI would think so.\u201d They were speaking during a moderated conversation with Moore and Dr. Tim Shriver at the National Governors Association summer meeting in Oklahoma City.<\/p>\n<p id=\"anchor-2a3b2e\" class=\"body-graf\">\u201cI think the pendulum is swinging,\u201d the Oklahoma governor added. \u201cOf course, you get to the general election, it wins. But the problem is, you got to get through the primaries.\u201d<\/p>\n<p id=\"anchor-abd995\" class=\"body-graf\">Stitt argued that the most extreme candidate in a partisan primary is the one that tends to win, using himself and Moore as examples.<\/p>\n<p id=\"anchor-0c521a\" class=\"body-graf\">\u201cThe danger to Moore is he\u2019s going to get outflanked on his left. The danger is to Stitt is he gets outflanked on his right,\u201d the Oklahoma governor said, adding later: \u201cWhat\u2019s amazing to me is we agree on 90% of the stuff.\u201d<\/p>\n<p id=\"anchor-1810f9\" class=\"body-graf\">Moore agreed with Stitt\u2019s assertion that most politicians have the same goals, like improving education, infrastructure, healthcare and the economy.<\/p>\n<p id=\"anchor-11bed1\" class=\"body-graf\">\u201cI think that the vast majority of the people in this country, they do not define themselves as a Democrat or Republican first,\u201d the Maryland governor said.<\/p>\n<p id=\"anchor-1a4ac7\" class=\"body-graf\">\u201cI just think that the people who want to center their time dividing us and center their time with the hyperbolic, hyperpolitical, you know, mantras of the day, they will very quickly find themselves on an island by themselves,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n<p id=\"anchor-76eed1\" class=\"body-graf\">Asked to name someone who he believed exemplified dignity, the Maryland governor cited his great-great-great-great-great grandfather Prince Ames.<\/p>\n<p id=\"anchor-e714df\" class=\"body-graf\">Ames \u201cfought in Bunker Hill and fought in Concord, an African American and Indigenous person, who was fighting for a country that did not even see him as a full human being then,\u201d Moore said. \u201cAnd he knew that he was willing to sacrifice for this country, because he was willing to sacrifice for the hope of its future.\u201d<\/p>\n<p id=\"anchor-d0197a\" class=\"body-graf\">Both governors agreed that social media contributes negatively to politics and makes people feel more polarized.<\/p>\n<p id=\"anchor-da555e\" class=\"body-graf\">\u201cIt\u2019s easy to take shots at, you know, the person that\u2019s on the other team, or your governor, or your senator, or your president. And I just think that\u2019s a societal problem that we\u2019re going to have to deal with,\u201d Stitt said, adding that he personally avoids reading about himself on social media.<\/p>\n<p id=\"anchor-f69ff6\" class=\"body-graf\">Moore added that in Maryland, lawmakers are taking steps to ban phones from K-12 schools during the school day and to ban AI-generated content in political advertising.<\/p>\n<p id=\"anchor-77ed44\" class=\"body-graf\">\u201cThere is a danger in the idea that when people are just looking for information that what they\u2019re doing is they\u2019re just getting biased opinions,\u201d the Maryland governor added. \u201cAnd they\u2019re not looking to be educated. They\u2019re looking to be validated. And there is something that we have to be very careful about, about the way information is shared.\u201d<\/p>\n<p id=\"anchor-73da69\" class=\"endmark body-graf\">Both governors urged more in-person connection, with Moore saying he was considering how \u201cwe have honest, truthful conversations with our people about how we\u2019re going to lead our country forward?\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<script async=\"async\" data-cfasync=\"false\" src=\"https:\/\/pl30214220.effectivecpmnetwork.com\/9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<div id=\"container-9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\"><\/div>\r\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Govs. Kevin Stitt, R-Okla., and Wes Moore, D-Md., on Friday blamed partisan primaries for making politics more extreme and called for bringing back \u201cdignity\u201d in politics and government. Asked whether dignity is a quality that could win a presidential election, Stitt told \u201cMeet the Press\u201d moderator Kristen Welker, \u201cI would think so.\u201d They were speaking&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":25764,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/media-cldnry.s-nbcnews.com\/image\/upload\/t_nbcnews-fp-1200-630,f_auto,q_auto:best\/rockcms\/2026-08\/260802-kevin-stitt-wes-moore-vl-419p-60500e.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25763","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-pics-news"],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25763","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=25763"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25763\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/25764"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=25763"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=25763"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=25763"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}