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Moore, a Democrat, was a guest star on “The Daily Show” with Trevor Noah, where the pair mused about his unlikely election victory in a state that traditionally leans toward the other side of the aisle.
Even Noah remarked that “nobody expected a Democrat to be able to win … but here you are. You've done it."
“It feels great, because right when we started this race, we started polling at 1 percent,” Moore responded, musing that, “‘I’m not voting’ was polling higher than I was polling at.”
“It was not looking good at first. People weren't feeling me,” the governor-elect continued. “But what we did was we continued to show people we were going to meet people where they were, we were going to go to every part of the state to talk to every person in the state, and that meant even places where there weren't a lot of Democrats."
Moore noted that some questioned why he was going out of his way to campaign in areas of the state where he was unlikely to get the vote, to which he had a perfect response that drew a resounding roar from “The Daily Show” crowd.
“People would literally say to me, ‘you’re coming to a lot of places where there are not a lot of Democrats," he said. "And I'm like yeah, but there are a lot of Marylanders, and I plan on being their governor too. And I think the people showed that when you're willing to put in the work and earn it, then the people respond.”
Noah added that Moore “ran a different race to what many establishment politicians run ... You didn't pander to a base, you spoke to the people of Maryland and didn't make the race national unnecessarily. You made it about the issues that were actually happening in your state."
Moore ended his appearance by talking about patriotism and what it means to him having served overseas after leaving his family to represent America in Afghanistan.
“I would hear people talk about this term of patriotism, and I became so bothered by that, because I’m like, you haven't earned it,” he said. "When I think of this concept where my definition of patriotism is when I left my family and I put on the uniform of this country and served with the 82nd Airborne Division.
“I was literally hearing people talk about patriots, whose definition of patriotism was putting on a baseball hat and storming the Capitol and trying to take down democracy,” Moore added.
“I think about my own life, and I come from a family of patriots ... Because I come from a family of educators. I come from a family of people who have served as engineers and made this country with their hands. I come from a family of ministers. Those are patriots.”
Moore concluded his appearance by stating he “refuses to be lectured about patriotism.”
So I refuse to be lectured, nor should anybody allow anyone to bastardize that term of patriotism, because we come from a place where I understand what it means to love your country even when your country doesn’t love you back and you still love it.”
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