As frontrunning gubernatorial candidate Bobby Charles finished a fiery stump speech at the Maine Republican Convention Saturday morning, one of his rivals, entrepreneur Jonathan Bush, watched from the upper bleachers.
Shortly after the convention chair nudged Charles to wrap up, Bush shook hands with TV reporters just as his campaign’s introduction video started rolling on a pair of massive Augusta Civic Center screens. Bush bolted along the stands toward an exit, whisking past chuckling and cheering supporters in a rush to get down to the stage.
The behind-the-scenes moment, preceding Bush’s pledge to take a shredder to wasteful Augusta programs and regulations, marked the energy and enthusiasm of Republicans who were largely supportive of the entire crowded field of gubernatorial contenders aiming to take on Democrats and replace outgoing Gov. Janet Mills.
“One party … determined to take back Maine and make it what it used to be and ought to be,” Randy, a retired Air Force veteran and civil servant who declined to give his last name, said outside after the speeches to hundreds of delegates.
A Bush supporter who will back any GOP nominee, Randy said his first reaction to Bush was, “Oh my God, another Bush.” But the athenahealth co-founder had “great answers, a great tax plan, and was the first candidate I talked to who actually said how he was going to do things,” Randy said.
The convention floor buzzed as delegates met and posed for photos with the candidates outside their booths decked out with patriotic bunting, balloons and campaign signs.
A table near Charles’ booth included a miniature wagon filled with candies and a sign reading “Have a Red Hot Fire Ball with Bobby Charles.” The backdrop featured dramatic images of the late conservative activist Charlie Kirk and President Donald Trump wedged between Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln.
The booth for businessman Robert Wessels featured rows of campaign T-shirts and hoodies for sale and large signs reading “Business minded. People focused.”
Real estate executive David Jones, with the help of items from his wife’s antique store, filled a booth made of lumber with leather couches, a fireplace and a coffee table. An antler chandelier hung overhead and a taxidermy deer and wooden fish plaque graced the wall.
Just outside the booth for former fitness executive Ben Midgley, a life-sized cutout of state Rep. Billy Bob Faulkingham hoisted up a massive lobster and declared in a speech bubble, “I’m voting Midgley.”
As Doug Thomas, a former state senator from Ripley, exited the convention hall, he held a red sign for Charles while family members held green signs for entrepreneur Owen McCarthy. Thomas said he supports Charles, but hopes the younger McCarthy sticks around and runs for office again.
“I hope that’s the future of the Republican Party — he’s a very good guy and very intelligent,” said Thomas, who’s running for the 72nd District seat in the Maine House.
George Colby, a semi-retired truck driver and delegate from New Gloucester, wouldn’t say who he plans to vote for in the primary. But he hinted at his favorite by mentioning one candidate who spoke while “never looking at his notes. That was Ben Midgley.”
Midgley won a non-scientific straw poll last week that sparked divides among candidates. He was previously among a large group who were in the single digits in a survey released last month by Pan Atlantic Research.
Colby and several other delegates said improving the state’s education system — over health care and the economy — was the most important issue in the race. Colby added that Trump’s sagging approval rating and a still-rocky economy won’t matter to most Mainers come November.
“The Democrats have destroyed the state so badly,” he said.
While the candidates pitched themselves as the best men to overhaul Augusta, they projected mostly party unity and positivity.
But Charles, a former U.S. State Department official running on a crime and immigration hardliner message combined with promises to slash $4 billion from the state budget, came under fire.
Jones told the Bangor Daily News on Saturday that if elected, he was open to talking to both parties about common sense ideas to fix affordability, health care, education and energy issues. But he said Charles, whom he cast as a “fearmonger” looking to “stir the pot,” had “poisoned the well” with both Democrats and Republicans, making him unlikely to get things done.
Former state Senate Majority Leader and lobbyist Garret Mason did not name Charles during his speech. But he seemed to target both Charles and Bush in pointed remarks while highlighting his own experience as “the only candidate in this race who has actually lowered your taxes.”
“Other candidates will scream into the void of the internet, chasing promises that they can’t keep, cosplaying as a Mainer,” he said. “This job is not about loud posts and AI slop. It’s about real results. And there are those that think that a family name qualifies them to lead. Maine does not run on nepotism, it runs on people who have earned trust by working in the trenches, whether it’s in small business or in government, and I have done both.”
Charles declined to speak to the BDN but a campaign spokesperson said his record stands for itself. He added that Charles is honored to be among the field of Republican candidates fighting hard for the nomination.
Bush in an interview said he didn’t mind Mason’s comment, noting he joked with Mason directly during a group photo that it was “a nice shot.”
He said that all the candidates are “great guys.” And he added that while Charles and Mason had both been lobbyists, that “doesn’t make them bad people — I just think it makes them not as good as me for this moment.”
