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.
NEWBURGH, Maine — Former President Donald Trump has suggested he would use the military against domestic enemies. He is vowing to launch the largest deportation program in U.S. history. Former advisers warned he would rule like a dictator.
Yet Maine Republicans from elected officials to the conservative base are generally sticking with Trump going into a Nov. 5 election in which he is a slight favorite to beat Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee. Many of them neither believe the former president’s darkest rhetoric nor the warnings from those who worked with him during his first term.
“It’s all rhetoric. I don’t buy into it, and I don’t listen to it,” state Rep. Jim Thorne, R-Carmel, said of the warnings. “He’s been the president of the United States, and he did a great job.”
The 2024 election has underscored the former president’s hold on the Republican base, especially in places like Maine’s 2nd Congressional District, which he has won twice. Voters outside the Dysart’s Travel Stop off Interstate 95 in Newburgh on Wednesday said they like their lives were under Trump while arguing his recent comments are neither new nor ominous.
“I think there’s evil on both sides,” Sydney Brackett, 19, a University of Maine sophomore from Raymond who is leaning toward voting for Trump, said. “I think there are ways that both sides are at fault, and you kind of have to weigh the pros and cons at this point.”
Maine’s top elected Republican, U.S. Sen. Susan Collins, was one of six senators in her party to vote to convict Trump for stoking the Jan. 6 riots at the Capitol. She also endorsed former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley’s run against Trump in the Maine primary and has said she is writing Haley’s name in for the general election.
But Collins has been mostly quiet about Trump through the major part of the election season. While visiting St. Joseph Hospital in Bangor on Wednesday, she did not answer a question about whether she believes Trump’s vows or warnings from those like John Kelly, Trump’s former chief of staff, who said the former president fits the definition of a fascist.
Collins instead cited “excessive rhetoric on both sides.” She added that there are Trump policies she supports, mentioning a lower cost of living when he was president. But then the senator was careful to reiterate that she is voting for neither major-party candidate.
“I just want this election to be over with, and that’s what I hear most from voters,” Collins said.
All polls indicate a close race between Trump and Harris, with the Bangor Daily News’ national election results partner Decision Desk HQ currently giving Trump a slight edge over Harris. Harris is expected to carry Maine, while Trump is favored to once again win the 2nd District.
Other Maine politicians are navigating Trump carefully. U.S. Rep. Jared Golden, a Democrat from Maine’s 2nd District, said in a Bangor Daily News op-ed this summer he would not vote for Trump but was refusing “to participate in a campaign to scare voters with the idea that Trump will end our democratic system.”
Golden, who faces a tight reelection battle against state Rep. Austin Theriault, a Trump-endorsed Republican from Fort Kent, did not respond to a request for comment sent to a spokesperson on whether he believes Trump would carry out his vows to go after political enemies or believes the warnings from Kelly.
Neither did spokespeople for Theriault, who has emphasized his Trump endorsement in recent weeks in an effort to win over Republicans who have thrown swing support to Golden in the last two elections. He was on a Sunday call with Trump in which the former president repeated a line that the U.S. has become a “garbage can” for other countries on immigration.
Assistant House Minority Leader Amy Arata, R-New Gloucester, said she believes Trump’s language regarding using the military on enemies has been taken out of context.
“The enemies he referred to are those who would disrupt our peaceful election,” Arata wrote in an email. “If, indeed, there are riots on election day, I hope that leaders of either party would render assistance instead of allowing cities to be burned and people to be harmed.”
At the Newburgh gas station, a Newport-area man who only gave his first name of Kyle while sitting in his truck with two dogs — Copper and Wanda — said he supports Trump amid concern for global conflicts that have escalated during the presidency of Joe Biden.
Another Trump backer, Jason Mathews, 47, a truck driver from Bangor who said he’s a Christian who supports gun rights, said the country’s institutions would restrain some of the former president’s impulses.
“There are too many checks and balances,” he said.
Several voters in Newburgh condemned Trump and said they believe he will carry out his promises. Mary Beth Walsh, 66, who lives in Portland and works with people who have disabilities, called Trump a “monster” and said her non-white children are “threatened” by him.
“I just think he’s a horrible human being,” Walsh said.
Another man leaving the store said he did not agree with Harris on everything but could not support Trump and the way he “degrades women.” He hesitated to give his name. Then he decided against it, explaining his Bangor-area colleagues may go after him for liking Harris.
