When Democrat Graham Platner entered the race to unseat incumbent Republican senator Susan Collins in August, he immediately clicked with Maine voters. An oyster farmer and ex-Marine who looks the part of a rugged Down-Easter, Platner’s brand of left-wing populism, focused squarely on the state’s cost-of-living crisis, resonated broadly. Platner has raised an impressive $4-plus million, gotten reams of positive press, drawn large crowds across the state, and received endorsements from Bernie Sanders and several progressive organizations. He has successfully positioned himself as the insurgent alternative against the Democratic Establishment’s pick to take on Collins: Maine’s 77-year-old governor, Janet Mills, who finally joined the race this week with the backing of national figures such as Chuck Schumer.
A major part of Platner’s appeal is that he is the opposite of a seasoned politician. But given that he was basically unknown before the summer, it seemed inevitable that his lack of polish would come with a few downsides. So it was perhaps not shocking when CNN’s investigative reporter Andrew Kaczynski — known for exposing politicians’ unsavory pasts — published an article that included several eye-opening internet comments made by Platner during his pre-politician days posting on Reddit, mostly from 2020 and 2021. Some of the most notable:
In one now-deleted Reddit comment from 2021, Platner responded to a thread about people becoming more conservative as they age by saying: “I got older and became a communist.” The comment was made on a subreddit called r/Antiwork, a far-left forum “for those who want to end work.”
In one deleted comment, in a thread about a Black army lieutenant who was held at gunpoint and pepper-sprayed by police during a traffic stop, one Reddit user wrote, “Bastards. Cops are bastards.” Platner replied, “All of them, in fact.”
In another since-removed post from 2020, Platner responded to a thread titled “White people aren’t as racist or stupid as Trump thinks” by writing, “Living in white rural America, I’m afraid to tell you they actually are.”
In the now-deleted posts, Platner also used the word “retarded” repeatedly to denigrate other commenters, along with other harsh language, as when he responded to a question about why Maine had voted against a power line that would connect Massachusetts to Canada: “I have to ask, and I do mean this is the most charitable of ways, but are you retarded? We shouldn’t have the [sic] eat the pain because you cunts and Massachusetts couldn’t act like adults. Fuck off and die, leave Maine out of your capitalist fantasies.”
And Platner detailed the disillusionment he experienced after his military service, sounding a pessimistic note about the U.S.: “My time in America’s imperial wars definitely radicalized me further,” he wrote, “and I’m significantly more left today than I was back then. It is difficult to see all that horror, as well as all the grift and corruption, and not find the entire thing utterly bankrupt. I did used to love America, or at least the idea of it. These days I’m pretty disgusted by it all.”
In an interview with Kaczynski, Platner said many of his comments were broadly unrepresentative of his current views. “That was very much me fucking around the internet,” he said. “I don’t want people to see me for who I was in my worst internet comment — or even, frankly, who I was in my best internet comment … I don’t think any of that is indicative of who I am today, really.”
“I’m not a communist. I’m not a socialist. I own a small business. I’m a Marine Corps veteran,” he continued.
Platner said he is still “very angry still about the wars I had to fight in and what I had to take part in” — a view that is unlikely to alienate many voters — while sounding a brighter note about America’s future: “I absolutely love the place that I live, and I love the people around me,” he said. “And I do actually believe firmly in the idea that we as Americans have a lot in common and that we can be the thing that we want to be the thing that we claim to be.”
On Thursday night, Politico published its own story about Platner’s internet past, this one focusing on his seeming endorsement of political violence. In comments he made in 2018, as part of a sub-Reddit called the Socialist Redditor Rifle Association, Platner wrote that if people “expect to fight fascism without a good semi-automatic rifle, they ought to do some reading of history.” And there was more where that came from:
In a July 2018 post on the same subreddit, Platner said that he “agreed” with a 1914 quote from former socialist presidential candidate Eugene V. Debs that workers should arm themselves unless they are “willing to be forced into abject slavery.”
Platner cited Debs, who ran for president from prison, as an example to counter the notion that the 2nd Amendment only gained salience in the 1970s.
“That’s why this poster and the Debs quote that follows above should be shared far and wide. An armed working class is a requirement for economic justice,” Platner said.
“As I told CNN, I was fucking around on the internet at a time when I felt lost and very disillusioned with our government who sent me overseas to watch my friends die,” Platner told Politico. “I made dumb jokes and picked fights. But of course I’m not a socialist. I’m a small-business owner, a Marine Corps veteran, and a retired shitposter.”
And the hits kept on coming. On Friday, the Bangor Daily Newsrevealed a series of Platner Reddit posts from 2013, in which he openly mused about a racist stereotype and appeared to make light of sexual assault:
Platner responded to a 2013 post on Reddit entitled “What is one question you have always wanted to ask someone of another race,” writing, “Why don’t black people tip?” He worked as a bartender at Tune Inn on Capitol Hill, where he was a guest bartender last month.
“I work as a bartender and it always amazes me how solid this stereotype is,” he wrote. “Every now and again a black patron will leave a 15–20% tip, but usually it [is] between 0–5%. There’s got to be a reason behind it, what is it?”
That same year, he also responded to a post about underwear designed to prevent sexual assault saying people should “take some responsibility for themselves and not get so f–ked up they wind up having sex with someone they don’t mean to?”
Whether Platner can surmount any fallout from the posts may depend on how well he can incorporate them effectively into his regular-guy image — and whether there is more from his past to be exposed, which seems like a decent bet at this point.
The reporting on Platner’s online past is already having an impact on his campaign. Per the Bangor Daily News, Maine state representative Genevieve McDonald left her role as Platner’s political director on Friday, writing in her resignation letter that the past remarks “were not known to me when I agreed to join the campaign, and they are not words or values I can stand behind in a candidate.”
This is all undoubtedly good news for Mills, who faces major electability questions herself, primarily regarding her age. She has pledged to serve only one term, but if Mills beats Platner and Collins, she would be the oldest freshman senator ever at 78. Especially after a presidential election defined by a Democrat’s advanced age, Mills will need to convince voters both that she’s fit to serve six years and that an Establishment deeply disliked by rank-and-file voters can still be trusted to pick the right candidate against the formidable Collins. Any more doubts about Platner’s viability will help.
Maine Governor Janet Mills, a Democrat, is preparing to launch a challenge to longtime GOP Senator Susan Collins in what is likely to become one of the most closely watched races of the midterms, the Associated Press reported on Friday, citing two people familiar with her plans.
“Primaries are an important part of the democratic process because they give voters a real choice for our future. Since launching the campaign, we’ve organized more than 30 events across the state and voters consistently tell me they want an open and vibrant primary process. With so much at stake, Mainers want to decide which candidate can defeat Susan Collins, defend our democracy from Donald Trump, and deliver for working families,” he said.
Newsweek reached out to spokespersons for Collins, Mills and other Senate candidates for comment via email.
Why It Matters
Maine generally leans Democratic, having backed former Vice President Kamala Harris by about seven points last November, but Collins has handily won reelection in the past due to her more moderate policy positions and close ties to the state. Democrats, however, believe 2026 has the potential to be her closest race yet as President Donald Trump’s approval slips nationwide, and as he remains unpopular in the Pine Tree State.
National Democrats view Mills, who has also won by wide margins in her two gubernatorial races, as a top recruit for the race. But others are less sold on the idea of her candidacy, believing that other Democrats already in the race such as Graham Platner, whose campaign has garnered nationwide attention, could make for a stronger candidate.
What To Know
Maine is likely a must-win for Democrats hoping to reclaim control of the Senate, where Republicans currently hold a 53-47 majority. Collins is the only Republican in a Harris-won state up for reelection. Democrats also view an open race in battleground North Carolina as a prime pickup opportunity, but other potential flips would require them to win more conservative territory.
Mills will bring high name recognition into the race, as voters are already familiar with her from her stint as attorney general and governor. She flipped the governor’s office in 2020, winning by about seven points, and won reelection in 2022 by nearly 13 points against former Governor Paul LePage. She is unable to run for reelection due to term limits.
But she may face a competitive primary against Platner, Maine Beer Company co-founder Dan Kleban and Wood, the former President of End Citizens United, all of whom have already announced their campaigns.
Polling on the Senate race remains limited despite its importance for the midterms.
Polls have generally found that Mills enjoys stronger approval than Collins.
A University of New Hampshire poll from over the summer found that 14 percent of Mainers view Collins favorably, while 57 percent view her unfavorably. An additional 26 percent were neutral. Meanwhile, 51 percent of Mainers view Mills favorably and 41 percent unfavorably. Only 7 percent were neutral on Mills, according to the survey, which surveyed 846 Mainers between June 19 and June 23. It had a margin of error of plus or minus 3.4 percentage points.
A Pan Atlantic Research poll yielded better results for Collins, finding that 49 percent of Mainers view her favorably and 45 percent view her unfavorable. It found that 52 percent of respondents viewed Mills favorably, while 44 percent viewed her unfavorably. It surveyed 840 likely voters from May 12 to May 26, and had a margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points.
Morning Consult found earlier this year that Mills had a net approval rating of +2—making her the least popular Democratic governor in the country—though Collins’ approval was -16. That poll took place from April to June of this year, and the sample sizes varied by state.
Polls in 2020 were notably off in Maine. Although surveys showed former Maine House Speaker Sara Gideon with a lead, Collins ended up prevailing with just over 50 percent of the vote.
Mills, viewed as a more centrist Democrat, engaged in a high-profile debate with the White House over Trump’s efforts to deny states funding over transgender athletes, telling him “We’ll see you in court.”
What People Are Saying
Senator Bernie Sanders, a Vermont independent, wrote on X Thursday: “Graham Platner is a great working class candidate for Senate in Maine who will defeat Susan Collins. It’s disappointing that some Democratic leaders are urging Governor Mills to run. We need to focus on winning that seat & not waste millions on an unnecessary & divisive primary.”
Pollster Adam Carlson wrote on X in August: “Sometimes to take out a modern political anomaly like Susan Collins, you need to try something different Janet Mills has been a good governor, but she’s 77, not especially popular, and has been in politics since 1980 Graham’s background might be unusual, but he’s got the juice.”
Commentator Russel Drew wrote on X on Friday: “We need to see some new, legit polling about #MESEN. The oyster farmer is absolutely an interesting candidate, but Gov. Mills has already won statewide twice. F*** our feelings. Let’s see the data.”
Anna Palmer, CEO of Punchbowl News, said during The Daily Punch podcast: “This is a huge get for Senat Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, who is on a recruiting tear. But Mills will have to contend with a crowded field of Democratic challengers who didn’t wait to jump in while she made up her mind. This is something that Democrats have been waiting for, and it seemed like she was taking her sweet time to get into the race, and now it is finally here. This could potentially be a problem for Susan Collins.”
What Happens Next?
Mills and other candidates will spend the coming months making their cases to voters about why they are the best candidate to challenge Collins in the Senate race. Forecasters give Collins an edge—both the Cook Political Report and Sabato’s Crystal Ball classify the race as leaning Republican.
The 2022 election cycle has found the GOP more competitive in New England than it has been in years. Former Providence Mayor Allan Fung (R), who is running to fill the open U.S. House seat currently held by Congressman Jim Langevin (D), is up in the polls heading into Election Day. In New Hampshire, meanwhile, the Republican nominee for U.S. Senate, Don Bolduc, received financial backing in the primary from Senator Chuck Schumer because Democrats viewed Bolduc as a more beatable opponent in November. Yet Bolduc now has a very real chance to win, with the Real Clear Politics polling average showing him to be in a dead heat with incumbent Senator Maggie Hassan (D).
In Maine, however, the last poll released before the election has Governor Janet Mills (D) with an eight point lead over her Republican challenger, former Governor Paul LePage (R). Yet even if Mills wins reelection, there is a decent chance she’ll be forced to work with a Republican-led statehouse, at least partially, for the first time.
The Portland Press-Herald reported that a Mills reelection means Democrats “would have the power to implement policies on issues such as abortion, taxes, health care and energy.” Yet that’s only true if Democrats also maintain control of both chambers of the state legislature in Augusta and polling shows that’s far from certain.
The Maine Democratic Party and outside groups backing Democratic state legislative candidates have outspent Republicans in an effort to maintain control of the legislature. Of the 151 seats in the Maine House of Representatives, Democrats hold 76. With nine seats vacant and three held by Independents, Republicans will need to gain 13 seats to take control of the chamber.
Control of the Maine Senate, where Democrats hold 22 seats and Republicans have 13, is also in play. Most of the spending on state legislative races in Maine this cycle, in fact, has gone toward state senate races. Democrats have deployed resources to defend prominent members of their Senate caucus, including Senate President Troy Jackson (D-Allagash). In the race to oust the Senate President, whose district went for Donald Trump in both 2016 and 2020, more than one million dollars has been spent on both sides according to a November 3 report.
Louis Jacobson with the Center for Politics at UVA wrote on October 20 that the Maine Legislature is “one of the GOP’s prime opportunities for a legislative takeover.” Jacobson added that “openness to ticket-splitting, both in New England generally and Maine specifically, could produce a flipped legislative chamber or two.”
If Republicans win control of the Maine Senate, that will make it fives times in the past seven elections that partisan control of the upper chamber in Maine has flipped. Republicans would prefer to win back control of both legislative chambers and the governor’s mansion, no doubt. But even if the GOP takes control of only one legislative chamber, be that the House or the Senate, that would have significant policy implications that greatly affect the type of legislation to be enacted in Maine over the next two years.
2022 will be the third election cycle under Maine’s controversial ranked choice voting system for federal candidates, which no other state uses except for Alaska. Last year, Governor Mills and the Democratic-led legislature made Maine the first state in the nation to enact an Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) program, which will place a fee on all consumer goods sold in plastic packaging. Since the enactment of that bill in Augusta, Governors Gavin Newsom (D-Calif.), Kate Brown (D-Ore.), and Jared Polis (D-Colo.) signed similar legislation. One Illinois legislator liked the Maine EPR bill so much she introduced a version that even maintained the EPR fee exemption for frozen wild blueberries included in the Maine law.
The days of Maine Democrats implementing progressive policy proposals not yet tested anywhere else will come to an end if Republicans take control of just one legislative chamber. If Republicans capture only one chamber of the state legislature and nothing else, that would also mean tax hikes are likely off the table, at least for the next two years. That’s because Maine Representative John Andrews has worked hard to get fellow incumbents and candidates running for House or Senate to sign the Taxpayer Protection Pledge. Among current and prospective office holders, nearly 70 incumbents and challengers for a seat in the Maine House or Senate have signed the pledge this cycle, as has Paul LePage.
“We must elect a majority of legislators committed to lowering the tax burden on the hard working people of our state,” says Maine Representative John Andrews (R-Paris). “Thankfully, a record two-thirds of Republican incumbents in the Maine House have signed the Pledge and will be faithful to it. That is how we chart a course to prosperity in Maine.”
The commitment that these incumbents and challengers in Maine have made to voters is the same promise that Governors Ron DeSantis, Glenn Youngkin, Greg Abbott, and fourteen other governors have made. While 17 incumbent governors have signed a pledge to oppose and veto any bill that would result in a net tax hike, that number could grow in 2023. That’s because a number of 2022 gubernatorial candidates who polls show have a good chance of being sworn in come January — such as Tudor Dixon in Michigan and Kari Lake in Arizona — have also made that same commitment to voters.
If Republicans were to take back control of all of Maine state government, that will mean it was a phenomenal midterm election for the GOP. But Republicans don’t have to win back everything in Maine to change the direction in which the state is heading in from a policy standpoint. The way many see it, Maine is at a fork in the road when it comes to the direction of state governance. The outcome of the 2022 midterms will determine whether the future of policy and governance in Maine looks more like New Hampshire or Vermont.
“Maine faces a pivotal election on November 8th and every vote will matter,” Representative Andrews added. “It is imperative that liberty lovers and fiscal conservatives vote in record numbers to restore our foundational and economic freedoms.”
Maine won’t become a no-income-tax state like New Hampshire if Republicans only win back control of one legislative chamber. But winning one chamber will certainly prevent Maine from continuing to compete with the like of Oregon, California, and Vermont when it comes to the implementation of novel progressive reforms.
JAY, Maine—Services at the New Life Baptist Church had just wrapped up, and in the parking lot outside its tiny chapel, Paul LePage was standing behind me with his arm wrapped around my head. He held a cellphone inches from my face, as if he were filming an extreme close-up. The former and perhaps future governor of Maine had insisted on reenacting an incident that had occurred a few weeks earlier, when he’d threatened “to deck” a Democratic operative tracking his campaign. “If you come into my space,” LePage had warned the young man, “you’re going down.”
I had asked LePage about the flap because it represented exactly the kind of uncivil confrontation for which the pugnacious Republican has become known. For more than a year, he had studiously been trying to avoid such encounters—and had largely succeeded. LePage, who as governor once challenged a Democratic legislator to a duel, famously bragged that he was “Donald Trump before Donald Trump.” After two tumultuous terms, he left office four years ago with an approval rating of just 39 percent. Now 73, LePage is attempting a comeback, bidding to oust the Democrat who replaced him, Janet Mills. With Trump eyeing a revival of his own in 2024, the gubernatorial race this fall could serve as a test of Maine voters’ appetite for the return of a Trumpian leader after four years of somewhat calmer Democratic governance.
A changed man LePage is not. But he is trying at least to sand down his rough edges, perhaps recognizing that the bombastic style he pioneered is no longer a winning formula in a state that shifted left in 2018 and decisively rejected Trump two years later. The governor who labeled people of color as “the enemy” of the nation’s whitest state has joined the parade of candidates denouncing the vitriol and even occasional violence that have infected American politics. “There’s an awful lot of hate in the hearts of many people, and it’s sad,” LePage told the parishioners inside the church, during a service on the 21st anniversary of 9/11. “We have to pray it away,” he said. “We have to come together as one nation.” Quoting Abraham Lincoln’s warning that a house divided cannot stand, LePage bemoaned the deep fissures between Republicans and Democrats. “It’s becoming vile and horrible.”
Was LePage trying to present a kinder, gentler version of himself this election? I asked the ex-governor that exact question outside the church. “No,” he replied. “What I’m saying is life is a journey. And along the way you learn and you get better, and hope that every day, the rest of my life, I’m a better man.”
An admirable sentiment. But did LePage think that during his time in office he had contributed to the hate he now recognizes in this country? He replied in a way that suggested he had some practice answering this query. “Am I perfect? No,” LePage said. “Did I make mistakes? Yes. Did I defend my family? Yes. Will I continue to defend my family? Yes.”
LePage likes to respond to inquiries with questions of his own. When asked about his critics’ pointing out how often he had promised to change his ways only to fall back into confrontations and insults, he responded by asking if I had seen such a lapse during this campaign. I replied that personally I had not. But of course, there was that pesky matter of the run-in with the Democratic operative. Clearly, LePage did not count that as one of his mistakes.
“He came into my personal space,” LePage said. “Let me show you what he did.” Before I knew it, the former governor had swung around me and begun the demonstration he hoped would exonerate him. Once he had shown me his quick version of events, LePage returned to where he had been standing for our interview. “If somebody attacks me,” he said, wagging a finger, “I will defend myself.”
When I checkedthe video of LePage’s brief confrontation with the Democratic operative, the interaction looked nothing like the former governor’s reenactment. The operative had approached LePage as the two men were stepping over a puddle after a parade (LePage was holding a Tim Hortons doughnut), but the closest the man came to LePage appeared to be a couple of feet, not inches. Yet the reason Democrats were so keen on broadcasting the incident as widely as possible—and why LePage was so intent on defending his reaction—was that the whole thing seemed so familiar, so very LePage.
Long before Trump shocked (and, in many cases, enthralled) voters on the campaign trail and upended Washington with his unfiltered, impulsive, often downright mean governing style, LePage had been doing the same in Maine. When in 2016 LePage described himself as Trump before Trump, “he was 100 percent correct,” says Roger Katz, a former GOP state legislator in Maine who backed LePage’s first gubernatorial run in 2010 but is now endorsing Mills. “The same kinds of insulting behavior and lack of respect for people is how he governed.”
LePage’s blatantly racist comments about Hispanic immigrants and Black people often made national headlines, but the many stories about his impulsive governing and frequent tirades have become local legends in Maine. Almost everyone I spoke with who had worked with the governor had a tale to share. Katz recalled the time that, in a fit of rage at lawmakers, LePage vetoed every single bill at the end of a legislative session, including those that he himself had proposed. Jeff McCabe, a Democrat who served as majority leader of the Maine House of Representatives, told me about how LePage had abruptly ordered a state prison closed in the middle of a dispute with lawmakers, resulting in the hasty transfer of inmates during the dark of night. “People woke up and thought there had been a prison break,” McCabe said.
Drew Gattine, now the chairman of the Maine Democratic Party, was serving in the state legislature in 2016 when he criticized LePage for comments in which the governor claimed that virtually all of the drug dealers arrested in Maine were “Black and Hispanic people.” In response, LePage left Gattine a voicemail in which he called him “a little son-of-a-bitch, socialist cocksucker.” The governor went on: “I want you to record this and make it public, because I am after you.” LePage later apologized to Gattine, but not before he told reporters that he wished it was “1825,” so the two men could duel. “I would not put my gun in the air,” LePage said at the time. “I guarantee you, I would not be [Alexander] Hamilton. I would point it right between his eyes, because he is a snot-nosed little runt.”
Protesters upset with then-Governor Paul LePage hold a rally outside the governor’s mansion in Augusta, Maine, on August 30, 2016. (Yoon Byun / The New York Times / Redux)
When I asked 63-year-old Joanne Glidden, an amateur motorcyclist with the United Bikers of Maine, what she liked most about LePage, she replied with a wide grin, “He reminds me of Trump!” As with Trump, LePage’s combativeness and lack of a public filter endeared him to many Republican and independent voters, who form the base of his current support. Glidden was among a dozen or so people who lingered at a fairgrounds in Windsor, Maine, after LePage had spoken to the biker group. “He spoke his mind, and I liked that,” Dan Adams, a 57-year-old crane operator, told me. “He don’t pull no punches.” The owner of a day-care center, Penny Nava, 56, told me she didn’t want to see LePage change his approach. “You need to be who you are,” she said. “You let that go, and you lose yourself.”
Maine is not as deeply blue a state as the most recent presidential election might suggest. In 2016, Hillary Clinton’s three-point margin of victory in Maine came closer than all but one other state (Nevada) to matching her slim advantage in the national popular vote. The state backed Biden by nine points in 2020, but Maine voters split their ballots and reelected Republican Senator Susan Collins by nearly the same margin, shocking Democrats who had spent nearly $100 million to defeat her. In both years, Trump won an electoral vote by carrying Maine’s rural Second Congressional District, where LePage yard signs have become ubiquitous.
Unlike Trump, LePage grew up in poverty, not wealth and privilege. The eldest of 18 children, he ran away from home to escape an abusive, alcoholic father and was homeless for a time, working odd jobs to survive. He eventually graduated from college, started a business, and then worked for many years as the general manager of a discount chain store before launching his career in politics. LePage ran for governor after two terms as mayor of Waterville, a Democratic-leaning city that is home to Colby College.
He won each of his two gubernatorial races in three-way contests that allowed him to capitalize on a divided opposition. In neither election did he capture a majority of the vote, winning with just 37.6 percent in 2010 and 48.2 percent in 2014. He spent eight years governing conservatively, reducing taxes and fighting for lower spending. After Maine voters approved a referendum to expand Medicaid, LePage blocked its implementation. His elections galvanized the movement in Maine toward ranked-choice voting, as advocates argued that the system would favor more-moderate candidates and would ensure that the winner ultimately secured votes from at least 50 percent of the electorate. Maine became the first state to adopt ranked-choice balloting and used the system in 2018 and 2020. But in a twist, a judge ruled that the system could go forward only in federal elections—for president and Congress—and not in state races. So it will not be in place for the Mills-LePage matchup this fall, although the lack of a serious independent candidate likely means that the change will have little effect.
Mills has held a small but consistent lead in the limited public polling so far, and Democrats expect the race to be close. They worry that the passage of time will have caused voters to forget what they disliked about LePage’s leadership style, so they’ve taken it upon themselves to remind them about his most memorable outbursts and dispute assertions that he’s changed. The strategy could be a preview of a national campaign against Trump should he run again in 2024. Across the country, this fall’s ballots feature plenty of Trump allies, acolytes, and would-be clones, most notably the gubernatorial candidates Kari Lake in Arizona and Doug Mastriano in Pennsylvania. But Maine voters had already experienced eight years of Trump-style chaos before they turned in the other direction, and now they face the unique question of whether they want to go back. LePage “has never lost an election,” Mark Brewer, a political-science professor at the University of Maine, told me. “So betting against him historically has been a losing bet.”
Donald Trump shakes hands with Maine Governor Paul LePage as he is introduced at a rally in Merrill Auditorium on Thursday, August 4, 2016. (Derek Davis / Portland Press Herald / Getty)
If LePage is a stand-in for Trump this November, Janet Mills is a Biden-esque figure in Maine. At 74, she hails from a prominent political family and has served in public office with only a few years’ interruption since the ’70s. Mills’s parents were friends of the longtime Republican Senator Margaret Chase Smith, and one of her brothers twice ran for governor as a Republican. After decades as a prosecutor and state legislator, Mills won election as Maine’s attorney general in 2008 and again in 2012. From that perch, she battled frequently with LePage, who at one point sued her for refusing to represent his administration when it sided with then-President Trump over his executive order restricting travel from Muslim-majority countries. (The state supreme court ruled in favor of Mills.)
Mills became Maine’s first woman governor after earning 51 percent of the vote in 2018—a higher share than LePage won in either of his victories. She acted immediately to implement the voter-approved Medicaid expansion and has increased spending on education, on infrastructure, and in the fight against climate change. Like Biden, she has occasionally worked with Republicans, most recently drawing bipartisan support to send $850 relief checks to citizens as a way to reduce the effects of inflation. Mills has also occasionally tangled with progressives, vetoing some bills passed by the Democratic-controlled legislature.
Mostly, Mills seems to have lowered the temperature of state politics. She’s warm and unassuming; when I saw her greeting patrons at a small farmers’ market, she drew little attention to herself and seemed to blend in with the crowd. On a recent Saturday morning, Mills spoke briefly to mark the tenth anniversary of the opening of a local grain mill. She read her remarks off an iPhone while a dancing toddler competed for the audience’s attention nearby.
If Democrats find fault with Mills, it’s that she is perhaps too low-key. “I don’t think she’s brought in a lot of people,” Nancy Baxter, a 65-year-old health administrator for the federal government, told me at the market. “I don’t see her having excited the state as much as we’d hoped.”
I met Mills outside the Margaret Chase Smith Library in Skowhegan, where the governor had worked for many years as a lawyer before entering politics. During a 30-minute interview, she touted her administration’s handling of and emergence from the pandemic. Like its neighbors in New England, Maine has a relatively high vaccination rate and low death rate, especially considering its population is one of the oldest in the country. Mills boasted about the state’s migration rate, which she said was the country’s seventh highest. “We’re turning the corner, and people are coming here,” she said. “We’ve become branded as a safe and welcoming state, and I like that.”
Mills brushed off LePage’s frequent attacks on her. “I can’t judge who he is today, but the people of Maine know who he was before,” she said. Mills sounded a bit like a candidate who believes she’s ahead in the polls. She noted that LePage had appeared in the state with Trump during the height of the pandemic, in 2020, when the former president called her “a dictator.” “I thought, This is ridiculous,” Mills recalled, dismissively. “For the better part of my career, I’ve listened to weak men talk tough. Loud men talk tough to hide their weaknesses.”
Trump hasn’t come to Maine to campaign for LePage this year. During my swing through the state, the Trump-before-Trump himself was a tough man to find.
He’s running a decidedly low-profile statewide race—“a stealth campaign,” as Mills described it to me—having apparently determined that the easiest way to stay on his best behavior is to steer clear of situations that would test his discipline. After formally launching his gubernatorial campaign a year ago, LePage has held virtually no large rallies and given few press conferences or interviews (aside from appearances on conservative radio stations). Maine’s political press corps is not large, and LePage frequently evades reporters by publicizing his appearances only after they’ve occurred, usually by posting photos to his Twitter or Facebook pages.
LePage’s campaign ignored me entirely. My many calls and emails went unreturned, and when I stopped by his campaign headquarters early on a Friday afternoon after Labor Day, no one was there. (“Don’t take it personally,” Katz, the former GOP lawmaker and LePage critic, assured me, noting that LePage “had a terrible relationship with the press” when he was governor.) When I showed up at a local GOP fundraiser that Democrats said LePage would be addressing, the organizers told me he had never been on the schedule. They directed me instead to the charity event that the United Bikers of Maine was holding about an hour away. LePage had indeed spoken to the group, but he was long gone by the time I got there.
I finally found the former governor on the morning of September 11 in the rural town of Jay, about 30 miles northwest of Augusta, the state capital. The New Life Baptist Church is the size of a modest, one-story house, and LePage arrived with his wife, Ann; a campaign aide; and a trio of local Republican legislators. He had befriended the church’s pastor, Chris Grimbilas, during his second term as governor, and the two have stayed in close touch in the years since. Grimbilas told the approximately 30 parishioners gathered in the sanctuary that LePage was not there “to campaign,” although LePage sounded very much like a candidate on the stump during his brief remarks from the pulpit. The theme of the Sunday service was to honor first responders, and LePage began by comparing the state’s firing last year of police officers and firefighters who refused COVID-19 vaccinations to the horrors of 9/11. “It was the most vicious of attacks on first responders I’ve seen since the World Trade Center,” he said, pledging to reinstate those who lost their jobs in January if he becomes governor again.
LePage’s sparse public schedule might seem like a questionable campaign strategy, but it could prove effective. As a recent two-term governor, he does not need to introduce himself to voters, and he might be hoping that a midterm backlash against Democrats nationwide will return him to office.
As for Trump, LePage is happy to have the votes of Mainers who associate him positively with the former president. But he’s not emphasizing the connection. For some voters, the link between the two men seems to be thinner than it was when both were in office. Despite their similar personalities, LePage and Trump had very different upbringings, and they’ve diverged again during their (perhaps temporary) retirements.
Unlike Trump, LePage left office willingly when his term was up in 2019. He and his wife initially moved to Florida, but he returned to Maine and worked as a bartender at McSeagull’s Restaurant for two summers, in the coastal tourist town of Boothbay Harbor. The gig served as good publicity for both the bar and LePage, who was already talking about challenging Mills for governor. Although he struggled to keep up during busy times, LePage’s fellow bartenders told me he was a good colleague who took direction well. “He needs to keep his mouth shut,” Gigi Frost, 41, told me. But she added: “I really do like him personally.” Frost, an independent, said she hadn’t decided whether to vote for LePage or Mills. Yet she saw LePage as distinct from Trump. “I despise Trump,” she said. “I don’t think LePage is as bad.”
That assessment matched what I heard from some other Maine voters, including those who hadn’t spent a summer pouring beers with the former governor. Trump is in a whole other category now from LePage. “LePage is better than Trump,” Shirley Emery, a 74-year-old retiree, told me in Windsor. “He’s honest. He’s not a womanizer.”
LePage seems to be hearing those voices too, and his cautious, buttoned-up strategy suggests that he sees Trumpism waning in the upper reaches of New England. When I asked him whether he still aligned himself with Trump, the former governor clammed up. “I’m running for governor of the state of Maine,” he said, “and I’m not going to talk about national politics.” I tried again. Should Trump run again in 2024? “I’m running for governor of the state of Maine, all right? And that’s it.”
Perhaps Paul LePage is a transformed man after all. The conservative who ran on unvarnished, tell-it-like-it-is authenticity has finally discovered his filter and learned the coded deflection of the blue-state Republican. Distancing himself from the president he once claimed as a protégé, the straight-talking governor has, in pursuit of one more term in power, almost become a conventional politician.
