Politics
Our political journalists are based in the Maine State House and have deep source networks across the partisan spectrum in communities all over the state. Their coverage aims to cut through major debates and probe how officials make decisions. Read more Politics coverage here.
AUBURN, Maine — Asked Monday how many terms he plans to serve if elected to Congress, former Gov. Paul LePage did not give a number.
“It’s all about health and sanity,” the Republican running for Maine’s 2nd District said. “Right now, I feel great.”
The exchange at a Monday news conference with House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-Louisiana, left unresolved a question that will be important to LePage and Maine Republicans if he wins in November: whether he will serve as a bridge candidate or stay in Congress well into his 80s.
LePage will be 78 by Election Day and would be one of the oldest freshman congressmen in history if he wins the seat. U.S. Rep. Jared Golden, a Democrat, won four terms before announcing last November that he would not seek reelection. State Auditor Matt Dunlap, who challenged Golden before the incumbent’s exit, won the four-way Democratic primary in June.
Golden’s exit made the 2nd District one of national Republicans’ top offensive targets in a cycle in which the party is otherwise playing mostly defense. LePage is generally favored to win, with Sabato’s Crystal Ball putting the seat in a “likely Republican” column last week.
But the map is a tough one for Republicans, who hold a narrow House majority. The president’s party also has historically lost seats in midterm elections. Democrats need a net gain of just three seats to retake the chamber, making the open seat a rare pickup opportunity Republicans are working to convert before losses elsewhere erase their edge.
Johnson’s visit to Auburn Concrete, which was followed by a nearby fundraising reception, was a marker of how much national party leadership is banking on LePage. He told reporters the former governor would “rise through the ranks very quickly” in committee assignments.
The speaker called LePage “fit and ready to serve” and one of the most qualified candidates in the history of the chamber as a former two-term governor.
“I hope he’ll serve many terms, because we’re going to need him,” Johnson said.
Johnson cast Dunlap as part of a Democratic “crazy column,” accusing him without evidence of aligning with Democratic Socialists of America positions to abolish the border, prisons, the U.S. Senate and the Department of War, also criticizing him for embracing Graham Platner before his Senate campaign collapsed due to a rape allegation.
Dunlap has not adopted those positions as part of his platform.
“Paul LePage will vote in lockstep with the Medicaid cuts and the tariffs that Mike Johnson keeps pushing,” Harry Burke, Dunlap’s campaign manager, said in a statement. “DC Republicans rolled Paul LePage out of his Florida retirement and realized he’s not up to the job so they’re sending reinforcements because they are terrified that LePage is down in the polls, he’s barely campaigning, and he won’t give straight answers to questions when he does bother to show up.”
BDN writer Benjamin Kail contributed reporting.