AUBURN, Maine — Democrat Troy Jackson and Republican Bobby Charles held a Wednesday debate that served as a sideshow to their respective gubernatorial primaries and was punctuated by insults and interruptions by the crowd.
Jackson, a former Maine Senate president from Allagash, challenged Charles, a lawyer from Leeds, to the debate last month following weeks of antagonism. The Republican had placed the Democrat on an “Audit Augusta” website, while Jackson blamed Charles for “whipping up hate” against a Somali-American lawmaker.
The two debated for an hour at an Auburn hotel in front of a small crowd that was limited to 25 people per campaign and was heavily attended by Maine’s political media despite eye-rolling from Jackson and Charles’ primary rivals.
We fact-checked four of the claims made Wednesday by both candidates.
Charles: “In terms of cutting costs in the state of Maine, I’m going to eliminate the income tax. It’ll take four years. We’re going to get rid of it.”
This is one of the big promises that Charles has made since coming onto Maine’s political scene last year. He has often vowed to do this in the same breath as cutting the property tax and rebuilding schools.
The income tax alone would be a major lift. It brings in half the state’s revenue even with the sales and corporate income taxes in the mix and would require heavy budget cuts and shifting to other forms of taxation. Pairing this with property tax relief is functionally impossible.
For example, nine states have no income tax. New Hampshire has no income nor sales tax. But it relies on heavy property taxes, even though people there paid 9.9% of income in taxes to 12.4% in Maine, according to 2022 data from the conservative Tax Foundation.
Jackson: “I would arrest officers that violate the Constitution, go after people that are black and brown, and make examples of people that aren’t following the law.”
The Democrat was taking a hard line on President Donald Trump’s immigration enforcement policies following the surge into Maine last month. While it’s not impossible for Maine police to arrest federal immigration agents, the path to doing so is narrow.
That’s because of the Supremacy Clause in the U.S. Constitution. A landmark 1890 Supreme Court decision held that agents are generally immune when acting reasonably within their duties. Jackson could arrest immigration officials, but their cases would have to go far beyond perceived constitutional violations for charges to ultimately stick.
Charles: “In terms of faith-based prevention and treatment, absolutely, they are incredibly powerful. They work. They have worked just as well as anything you call evidence based.”
This came in response to a question on faith-based addiction treatment. Both candidates said they support it, and Charles’ statement is generally true.
Some of these programs report success rates of 75%. Peer-reviewed studies have found people with lower spirituality have higher relapse rates and 73% of U.S. treatment programs have a spiritual element.
Jackson: “Bobby going on about my problems or whatever … read [the Maine Ethics Commission]. Five to nothing.”
This was the issue that landed Jackson on Charles’ campaign website. While he was Senate president in 2023, the Democrat faced two complaints from Republican lawmakers that emanated from reporting in the conservative Maine Wire out of a lawsuit filed by Jackson against an Augusta couple that sold him a home near the State House.
The complaints argued that Jackson may have run afoul of residency requirements for lawmakers or federal home loan rules that required Jackson to certify Augusta as his primary residence. He argued to the Maine Ethics Commission that those federal and state rules differ.
The commission declined to investigate Jackson, although it was more of an issue of purview than them clearing the candidate. It regulates campaign finance law and not mortgage fraud.
