Democrats running for Jared Golden’s seat break from his legacy in 1st debate

The four Democrats vying to succeed U.S. Rep. Jared Golden in Maine’s 2nd District spent much of their first televised debate Tuesday night drawing a sharp contrast not just with former Gov. Paul LePage but with the man whose seat they hope to win.

Golden, a four-term Democrat who abruptly declined to seek reelection in November, is an outlier in his party as a leading centrist in the House who supports President Donald Trump’s sweeping tariffs and turned against Medicare for All after backing it during the 2018 election that put the seat back in his party’s column. He also has voted with Republicans on Trump’s Iran war powers after supporting a middle-ground attempt to wind down the conflict.

His would-be successors made clear they intend to run a different kind of campaign in a district that voted for Trump three times and has trended Republican for more than a decade. All four candidates — State Auditor Matt Dunlap, state Sen. Joe Baldacci, former political operative Jordan Wood and social worker Paige Loud — rejected Trump’s sweeping tariffs.

“These tariffs actually cost consumers in Maine hundreds of millions of dollars at increased prices,” Baldacci, of Bangor, said at the first debate of the primary hosted by WMTW, WABI and WAGM. “They literally are hurting our economy and throwing people out of work.”

The candidates also broke sharply with Golden’s cautious positioning on health care. Three of the four — Wood, Dunlap and Loud — endorsed Medicare for All. Dunlap staked that stance out in his opening statement. Baldacci has a more incremental position, proposing to extend Medicare eligibility to age 55 as a first step toward universal coverage.

All four candidates expressed unequivocal opposition to the Trump administration’s military campaign in Iran, which has sent oil prices surging and put gas costs to their highest level in four years. That came on the heels of yearslong concerns about costs stemming from the COVID-19 pandemic.

“I do not agree with any of this president’s actions in Iran,” Loud, of Old Town, said. “We are in a war with no defined objective, no defined end or honest explanation as to why we’re even there.”

The candidates also tangled with LePage, who faces no primary opposition and enters the race as the favorite. Wood, who gained little traction in the high-profile race for the right to take on U.S. Sen. Susan Collins before switching to the 2nd District race following Golden’s retirement, was asked by moderator Jon Chrisos if it was more important to beat Collins or LePage.

“Both of them, in this moment, are equally threatening to our future,” said Wood, who switched his address from his seaside home in Bristol to Auburn after switching races.

When it came to the first bills they would introduce in Congress, the candidates outlined different priorities. Loud said she would overhaul Maine’s 1980 settlement governing Maine-tribal relations, an issue she agrees with Golden on. Wood chose the For the People Act, a sweeping Democratic anti-corruption and campaign finance reform package. Dunlap and Baldacci picked their health care stances.

Republicans have been confident that LePage can take the seat back, leaning into the 2nd District’s support for Trump. In a statement following the debate, House Republicans’ campaign arm derided the Democrats as “sycophants of the far left.”

The candidates will reconvene Thursday for the second and final televised debate in their race hosted by Maine Public and the Portland Press Herald. Tuesday’s debate was the first one on TV in Maine’s biggest primaries in 2026.