Karen and Dan Mulder joined the sprawling line around 11 a.m. Thursday to get a chance to hear Vice President JD Vance speak in Bangor.
The couple, tanned from just returning from their winter home in Florida, came to the Bangor International Airport where Vance was set to speak to support him and to hear the vice president talk about what’s going to be done about high prices and fraud in Maine.
“We are two patriots, and we need to save this country,” Karen Mulder said.
Hundreds of attendees waited for hours to enter the venue where Vance was set to speak by the time he landed Thursday afternoon. By 11:50 a.m., dozens of people were turned away from the door before Vance began speaking.
In his speech, the vice president spoke about federal anti-fraud efforts and showed support for Republican candidates running for state and federal positions. People in line to see Vance were passionate that he could help end the fraud in Maine and lower the state’s high cost of living.
Many people waiting there had more tangible issues with a recent spike in food and gas prices than fraud, but said the two were connected.
The Mulders, who were waiting for less than an hour, own a camp on Brewer Lake where they spend half the year, the couple said. In the last year, property taxes for that camp have gone from $1,200 to $5,000, Karen Mulder said. Higher taxes, spikes in electricity bills and a lack of transparency from Gov. Janet Mills has made the lifestyle that many Maine residents sought to attain out of reach, but Vance could bring a change to that, Karen Mulder said.
“They’ve taxed the one thing Mainers enjoy and made it unaffordable,” she said.
Vance needs support from voters because he’s a “good representation of a family man” and can help Maine become more affordable, step away from social issues and focus on enacting laws that could help residents, she said.
Just a few spaces in front of the Mulders, John Eastham, a Belfast resident, was using a day off from work to hear Vance speak, he said. Eastham wanted to hear what Vance would say about fraud in Maine and was “more interested in him than the locals” who may be endorsed by the vice president, he said.
Donned in gray suit paints, a matching vest and an American flag tie, Eastham said he was dressed up to show respect for the vice president. Eastham was not out of place, as many attendees were wearing suits or dresses more akin to the Kentucky Derby than to a political rally.
While protestors across the street from the event held signs criticizing the Trump administration for the war in Iran and higher gas prices, Eastham said he doesn’t agree with everything Trump and Vance do, but believes their policies will be regarded more positively by Americans in the future.
As Eastham was inching closer to the event entrance, Amanda McGonigle, who was roughly two dozen people behind Eastham, was told she wasn’t able to attend the event and asked to leave the line.
Security agents walked from the front of the line to where McGonigle was waiting to tell her she couldn’t attend the event, she said. The agents approached her by saying; “Hi, Amanda,” McGonigle said.
McGonigle, who drove from Massachusetts and registered for the event, didn’t know how they knew her name, but thought she had been on a list of people not allowed in or been recognized by one of the Secret Service’s cameras, she said.
McGonigle runs an Instagram account called Cats on a Couch that posts pictures of her cats along with memes and videos making fun of Vance. The account has 1.7 million followers.
“It’s a cat account. This is silly,” McGonigle said she told the agents.
She has previously protested Vance in Nantucket, and “just wanted to troll him” in Bangor, she said. She emphasized that trolling, or making fun of someone, isn’t illegal.
After being told to leave, she joined a ground of roughly 30 protestors organized by Indivisible Bangor, a local political group. Protestors held large signs of altered images of Vance intended to mock him brought from Boston.
McGonigle used a megaphone to berate Vance as his people were leaving Air Force 2, saying that he was spreading bigotry and hatred through his policies.
“I think this man, and this administration, doesn’t deserve a moment of peace,” McGonigle said.
