Ben Midgley’s mother brought him to the Kennebunk town hall when he was 18 to help him register to vote.
“Sign this. You’re a Democrat,” he recalled her saying in a Friday interview.
He remained a Democrat for 27 years while embarking on a career that saw him lead Planet Fitness and then launch in 2009 the company behind the multinational Crunch Fitness chain. Those career moves took him to California’s Contra Costa County near San Francisco and then back to southern Maine.
In 2015, Midgley made another move, registering as a Republican, according to his voter registration information on file in Kennebunkport. He’s now running for the party’s gubernatorial nomination with a team that overlaps with that of former Gov. Paul LePage, a key figure in the Republican grassroots.
“There were a lot of jobs going overseas,” Midgley, 56, said of the circumstances a decade ago that prompted his political shift, also mentioning disagreement with how the U.S. was handling Iran and Middle East issues. “And it didn’t kind of match up with what I thought the priority should be if you’re trying to improve things for people in the country.”
Midgley’s evolution places him in a unique spot among the field of Republican contenders seeking to succeed Gov. Janet Mills next year. It also opened him to early attacks from opponents like Bobby Charles, a Leeds lawyer who served under former Republican presidents and who sarcastically welcomed Midgley into the race in August by expressing surprise that “he’s not running as a Democrat.”
But Midgley said “there’s no question” he is a Republican advocating for conservative policies. But in a Democratic-leaning state with a history of electing more moderate figures, Midgley said winning is about proving you can deliver “results” rather than “proving I’m the reddest.”
“I’m not about the purity test, because that’s not what it’s about,” Midgley said. “Some folks out there will almost say and do anything to try to win a Republican primary. It’s not about that.”
During a roughly 15-minute Zoom interview, Midgley apologized to a reporter for what he described as his casual attire after returning from a workout and reiterated some of the areas of focus for his campaign. He brought up the “open border” and “soft on crime” policies while mentioning a nephew who died of a drug overdose.
He said he is opposed to transgender girls competing in female sports and wants less spending on benefits for undocumented immigrants while also sharing concerns over MaineCare’s sustainability and noting he was a college dropout who previously received food stamp benefits. Midgley pointed to lower test scores for Maine students on assessments and criticized a focus on social and emotional learning in schools.
As for his view of President Donald Trump?
“He’s doing a lot of good for America’s standing in the world,” Midgley said, giving Trump credit for numerous peace deals.
Midgley’s campaign intersects with LePage, who is running for Maine’s 2nd Congressional District in 2026. The former governor’s daughter, Lauren LePage, is one of his strategists, while longtime LePage fundraiser Michael Hersey is also in the fold. They also worked for Shawn Moody, the Republican gubernatorial nominee in 2018 who may join the current, crowded field.
Midgley said he has heard from Democrats who agree with him on education-related changes. He shared how he and his team put in about eight months of legwork before he officially joined the gubernatorial race. He was discussed as a potential Senate candidate in 2022 before declining to run against independent U.S. Sen. Angus King.
Other businessmen are running in the primary, but Midgley made a point of saying he is not “some naive business guy” who thinks politics is the same as running a company.
“There’s creative things you can do to get the state back to where it needs to be,” Midgley said.
