Thank You. GUBERNATORIAL CANDIDATE ALEC ROSS.

Dear David,

I wanted to reach out to those who supported my campaign to say thank you. I am so grateful to those who volunteered, contributed, spoke to their friends, hosted events, or voted.

I am not only writing with gratitude today, but also with sadness. There was another mass shooting yesterday in Maryland. Several people have been announced dead or injured in another senseless act of violence.

While the election result did not turn out how I had hoped, I am reminded that I was not running to serve my own ambitions, but to put forward ideas and policies that could re-shape life in Maryland for the better.

Among the ideas that Julie Verratti and I put forward was using technology to make guns safer, including biometric smart grips that would prevent anyone other than the owner from firing. I don’t know yet whether or not yesterday’s shooter used his own legally-purchased gun, but I know that many of the mass shootings and certainly much of the gun crime in my home city of Baltimore are carried out by guns obtained illegally.

The crime and violence that too many young people watch and worry about is a major contributor to their lack of opportunity. If you saw me at a debate or on the campaign trail, I’m sure you heard me say that “talent is everywhere, but opportunity is not.” That was the central theme of our campaign and bridging the gap between talent and opportunity will remain my life’s mission.

Students should be learning to code, not learning to shelter from an active shooter. Whether it’s education, economics, fear of violence, environmental disasters, an unfair criminal justice system, or plain old discrimination, we must make sure that we systematically remove barriers to people being able to make it in tomorrow’s world.

While our campaign has ended, our mission has not. We must all come together and help our nominee, Ben Jealous, so that we cannot only fix the bad, but so we can build the good. We have so much potential and by working together we can realize that potential. The future does not have to be scary.

Julie and I can never fully express how much this journey has meant to us and how much your help along the way is appreciated.

Thank you for helping us run a race we can all be proud of.

My best,

- Alec