Attorney General Doug Gansler launched a 17-stop tour in his campaign for governor Tuesday.
Gansler started in Rockville, continuing on to Ellicott City and Baltimore later in the day. His $7 million campaign war chest far outdistances his rivals -- Del Heather Mizeur and Lt. Gov. Anthony Brown.
"I feel very confident," Gansler said. "We're incredibly well-positioned in this race in terms of organization, in terms of resources, in terms of having my own individual record and vision for the state ... I feel very confident, but it's going to be a long race."
Gansler, a native of Maryland, now resides in Bethesda.
"When he was 5, he said he would be president one day," Gansler's mother Alison Gansler said Tuesday.
Gansler has said he was the first Maryland elected official to support Barack Obama in his first presidential campaign, and says he was the first to advocate same-sex marriage.
"He has been there for consumers and he has been there for civil rights," Del. Susan Lee (D-Montgomery County) said. "He has made Montgomery County what it is and I think he'll do that for all of Maryland."
