After moving to Roxbury, Moran became involved in local politics. During the 1892 election he took the stump for Timothy V. Coakley, Democratic nominee in the Massachusetts Senate's 8th Suffolk District. During the 1895 Boston mayoral election, Moran and Coakley ended up on the opposite sides, with Moran supporting Democrat Josiah Quincy and Coakley supporting Republican Edwin Upton Curtis. The two engaged in a joint debate in front of 4,000 people at the Boston Music Hall. In the 1897 mayoral election, Moran broke with Quincy and supported Thomas Riley, an attorney who as the candidate of the Bryan Democrats, a group of Boston Democrats who "repudiated the Chicago platform".