Maya Rockeymoore Cummings, a policy consultant with more than two decades of experience in the public and private sector, announced her Maryland gubernatorial campaign Thursday, becoming the eighth serious Democratic contender, third black candidate and second woman in the race.

Rockeymore Cummings, 46, started a public policy consulting company — Global Policy Solutions LLC — in 2005 and previously worked as U.S. Rep. Charlie Rangel’s (D-N.Y.) chief of staff, The Washington Post reported. She was also part of the House Ways and Means Committee staff and worked at the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation.

The wife of U.S. Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.), Maya Rockeymoore Cummings is one of five contenders who has never held public office before stepping up to challenge Republican Gov. Larry Hogan next year.

[Read more: Democratic gubernatorial candidate Alec Ross visits UMD to help register students to vote]

One of Rockeymore Cummings’s main campaign points is education. She didn’t name specific policy ideas to improve this state’s schools, opting to wait for recommendations from a commission examining how the state funds education, The Baltimore Sun reported.

She will collaborate with lawmakers to implement the group’s suggestions, but she stopped short of committing to revenue increases that might accompany those suggestions, The Sun reported.

Rockeymoore Cummings said Hogan’s transportation plan focuses too much on highways and won’t help the state’s traffic problems. She said his $9 billion plan to add express toll lanes to the Capital Beltway, Interstate 270, and the Baltimore-Washington Parkway was “a 20th-century solution to a 21st-century problem,” The Sun reported.

She also emphasized health care and a move toward a national single-payer health care system, as well as bringing Maryland closer to universal health care, CBS reported. For those who earn too much to qualify for Medicaid, Rockeymoore Cummings supports being able to “buy in” to the system.

[Read more: Baltimore County Executive Kevin Kamenetz is running for Maryland governor]

Rockeymoore Cummings joins Democratic candidates including Prince George’s County Executive Rushern Baker; former NAACP President Ben Jealous; Maryland Sen. Richard S. Madaleno (D–Montgomery); technology entrepreneur Alec Ross; former University System of Maryland Board of Regents chairman James Shea; and Krish Vignarajah, former policy director for First Lady Michelle Obama.

A Goucher College poll found nearly half of Maryland Democrats didn’t have a preferred candidate, The Washington Post reported on Sept. 26. Nine percent of respondents to the poll said they would consider voting for Rockeymoore Cummings.