The BDN Editorial Board operates independently from the newsroom, and does not set policies or contribute to reporting or editing articles elsewhere in the newspaper or on bangordailynews.com.
While we continue to wait for a serious challenger to emerge in Maine’s 1st Congressional District, Rep. Chellie Pingree remains the clear choice for voters there. Pingree is a thoughtful and experienced legislator, and by our assessment, her two challengers are unprepared to replace her in the U.S. House of Representatives.
Pingree has spent over 15 years in Washington, which raises an age-old question about the balance between experience and fresh perspective. There should be little doubt that, with the power that comes with incumbency, more time spent in Congress can potentially be beneficial for constituents. Like it or not, seniority has its perks — especially when in the majority party. As a top Democrat on the Ap propriations Committee, Pingree is well versed and well positioned to deliver for her district.
Pingree recognizes the imperative, for her district and for the entire country, of preparing for and combating climate change. She has been a leader in the push for a sensible change to federal asylum law, to allow asylum seekers to work sooner and provide for themselves rather than relying on government and nonprofit assistance. She is also clear eyed to the risks of another term for former President Donald Trump, and what it would mean for Congress in exercising critical checks and oversight of the executive branch should Trump be elected again.
“I will serve in Congress if I am lucky enough to be reelected, and I will be on hard defense if Donald Trump is allowed to do this again,” Pingree told the BDN editorial board. “But I put in four years of being in Congress when Donald Trump was the president, and I saw the level of destruction and just nastiness that he brought to our debate and dialogue.”
Pingree’s Republican and independent challengers, in contrast, do not appear well-prepared for the office they seek.
Republican candidate Ron Russell has an impressive backstory that includes a long career of military service and the creation of his own company, but we find his journey to the ballot to be problematic and some of his positions to be out of step with CD 1 voters. He bemoans divisive political discourse but supports Donald Trump, who has played as big a role as anyone in fostering that divisiveness. His preference for nuclear over wind and solar as a renewable energy source seemingly overlooks the experience of communities like Wiscasset, in the district he seeks to represent, still wrestling with unsolved challenges of nuclear waste storage and disposal.
Russell, who grew up in Fort Fairfield in Maine’s 2nd Congressional District and spent years living out of state before returning to Maine in 2021, told the BDN editorial board that he moved back to Maine specifically to run for Congress. While we appreciate his candor and welcome him back to Maine, we find this to be a staggering admission that, at least to us, demonstrates a greater desire to serve in Congress rather than to serve a particular constituency.
Independent candidate Ethan Alcorn failed to impress as well. Alcorn, who has run previously unsuccessful campaigns for president, governor and Saco school board, rightly points to the failures of our two-party system. But in our conversation with him, he appeared to echo hearsay before confirming facts and conflate conspiracy theories with common sense, an approach that we already have far too much of in our two-party system.
There should be no set qualifications to serve in Congress, other than those prescribed in the Constitution. That is to say, there is not one right way to represent the American people. Even with a broad understanding of what it means to be a qualified candidate for public office, these two challengers don’t come close to matching Pingree’s preparedness and experience serving in this seat.
It is not that Maine’s 1st District is unwinnable for Republicans or independents. It is that Republicans in particular keep running candidates who are far out of the mainstream of the district’s voters. Chellie Pingree remains the best choice in the 1st District.
