Govs. Kevin Stitt and Wes Moore say civility can win general elections but primaries promote partisanship

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 “dignity” in politics and government.

Asked whether dignity is a quality that could win a presidential election, Stitt told “Meet the Press” moderator Kristen Welker, “I would think so.” They were speaking during a moderated conversation with Moore and Dr. Tim Shriver at the National Governors Association summer meeting in Oklahoma City.

“I think the pendulum is swinging,” the Oklahoma governor added. “Of course, you get to the general election, it wins. But the problem is, you got to get through the primaries.”

Stitt argued that the most extreme candidate in a partisan primary is the one that tends to win, using himself and Moore as examples.

“The danger to Moore is he’s going to get outflanked on his left. The danger is to Stitt is he gets outflanked on his right,” the Oklahoma governor said, adding later: “What’s amazing to me is we agree on 90% of the stuff.”

Moore agreed with Stitt’s assertion that most politicians have the same goals, like improving education, infrastructure, healthcare and the economy.

“I think that the vast majority of the people in this country, they do not define themselves as a Democrat or Republican first,” the Maryland governor said.

“I 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,” he added.

Asked to name someone who he believed exemplified dignity, the Maryland governor cited his great-great-great-great-great grandfather Prince Ames.

Ames “fought 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,” Moore said. “And he knew that he was willing to sacrifice for this country, because he was willing to sacrifice for the hope of its future.”

Both governors agreed that social media contributes negatively to politics and makes people feel more polarized.

“It’s easy to take shots at, you know, the person that’s on the other team, or your governor, or your senator, or your president. And I just think that’s a societal problem that we’re going to have to deal with,” Stitt said, adding that he personally avoids reading about himself on social media.

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.

“There is a danger in the idea that when people are just looking for information that what they’re doing is they’re just getting biased opinions,” the Maryland governor added. “And they’re not looking to be educated. They’re looking to be validated. And there is something that we have to be very careful about, about the way information is shared.”

Both governors urged more in-person connection, with Moore saying he was considering how “we have honest, truthful conversations with our people about how we’re going to lead our country forward?”