The three candidates running to become Maine’s next governor delved into a range of weighty policy issues during a debate held at the Gracie Theater in Bangor on Thursday.
Health care costs, the state budget, housing affordability, electricity costs and immigration enforcement animated the hourlong debate, the second of four between Democrat Hannah Pingree, Republican Bobby Charles and independent Rick Bennett.
Each of the candidates used the forum to further narratives that have become central to their campaigns as they seek to replace Democratic Gov. Janet Mills next year.
Here’s what stood out:
Charles’ Trump pivot
In the spring, Charles steamrolled the Republican primary field by closely aligning himself with President Donald Trump and backing his controversial mass deportation campaign, including the ICE surge in Maine that drew a public backlash.
That was a winning strategy in the GOP primary, but Charles has moved sharply away from it as he seeks to win the general election. He’s softened his rhetoric and emphasized disagreements he has with the president on policy, including tariffs on Canada — Maine’s leading trade partner — and efforts to rollback powerplant emission standards.
He did that again on Thursday after he was asked by Maine Public’s Kevin Miller “which Bobby Charles” voters should expect if he wins the November election.
“There is only one Bobby Charles and he is perfectly consistent,” he said before listing off his disagreements with the president.
On immigration enforcement, Charles blamed ICE’s violent conduct on American streets, including in Maine, on a new law barring cooperation between local law enforcement and ICE agents.
“State and local and federal law enforcement should always be talking to each other. That increases public safety,” he said.
Charles also continued to pursue his attacks against Pingree, painting her as the status quo candidate because she was a key policy official in the Mills’ administration. When the debate turned to health care and managing the rising costs of Maine’s Medicaid program, MaineCare, he blamed the Democrat for allowing fraud and cost overruns to plague the program.
“I think it’s almost comical up here that we’re debating and hearing Hannah coming up with all these solutions to problems that she created,” he said.
Pingree attacks Trump — and Charles
Pingree, the former Maine House speaker, largely ignored Charles’ attacks on policies she advanced alongside Gov. Mills.
Instead, she sought to remind viewers of Charles’ statements and rhetoric during the primary, using them to suggest he would enable and comply with Trump’s agenda if he’s elected in November.
“He has wanted to open an Alligator Alcatraz to detain people here in our state,” she said. “He’s even invited ICE to come to our polls and harass Maine people as they go to vote, which is against federal law.”
Pingree has made opposing Trump a centerpiece of her campaign, a tack that follows polling showing that the president is deeply unpopular with Democrats and independents in Maine. Those same surveys show that voters want politicians who will be a check on the president’s turbulent policy agenda. Her attacks on Charles played into that theme.
Pingree also appears wary of being too closely associated with Mills, or more specifically, being labeled as a continuation of the departing administration. At several points she sought to highlight differences she’s had with the governor, including tribal sovereignty. Those differences did not appear to extend to fiscal or energy policies despite Charles’ critiques.
Bennett and partisan ‘jerseys’
Bennett, a longtime Republican and former chairman of the Maine Republican Party, pursued the well-worn path of independent candidates: labeling the two major political parties as destructive forces that exist to keep voters in constant conflict with one another.
He described the dynamic as the “political industrial complex.”
At one point, he dismissed Charles and Pingree as partisans beholden to their respective parties and incapable of collaboration and cooperation.
“Hannah Pingree has a D on her jersey. Bobby Charles has an R on his jersey. My jersey says Maine,” he said.
He was asked by Portland Press Herald reporter Billy Kobin why he left the Republican party last year.
“My party in particular has gone down a bad path where it’s become a cult of personality rather than a place of meaningful participation,” he said.
During the debate, Bennett and Pingree agreed on several topics, including the law that banned cooperation between local law enforcement and ICE. When Charles suggested the law led to more dangerous conditions in the streets, Bennett said ICE’s lawless conduct left policymakers no choice.
“ICE has not earned the benefit of the doubt in the way that they’ve acted in Maine and hurting Maine people and Maine communities,” he said.
Bennett’s sharpest critiques of the Mills administration came during the discussion of the state’s health care system and state finances. The state senator has been a frequent critic of the legislature’s opaque budgeting process, which he says has allowed wasteful spending to continue without scrutiny. While he said Maine should continue to support the MaineCare expansion approved by voters in 2017, he also said the state was shortchanging the hospital system with delayed reimbursement payments.
“The state government has made lots of promises and it’s not paying its bills,” he said.
This story appears through a media partnership with Maine Public.