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We’ve been hearing the word “coup” a lot recently from Republicans, including from the Maine Republican Party. The assertion is that President Joe Biden withdrawing from the presidential race, with Vice President Kamala Harris expected to replace him as the Democratic nominee, somehow amounts to a coup.
We respectfully, and strongly, disagree with that assessment. It seems like an over-the-top attempt to delegitimize a valid — though largely unprecedented — process that national Democrats are going through right now. And we’ve been thinking about it in terms of a different situation here in Maine where another candidate is being replaced on the ballot.
In Maine House District 73, current Republican state Rep. Mike Soboleski has replaced Kevin Lee Scott, the Republican candidate who won the primary election, on the Nov. 5 ballot. Soboleski had previously run in the Republican primary for Maine’s 2nd Congressional district. After Soboleski lost that primary in June, Scott withdrew from the District 73 race and Soboleski was chosen in a Republican caucus to run instead to keep his current state Legislature seat.
To be absolutely clear, we don’t have a problem with this process in the District 73 race. Is the general practice of having placeholder candidates (from either party) a tad cynical? Sure, but it’s not a coup. It follows the process laid out in state law for replacing a candidate. And to be fair, there surely are some differences in scope and timing between this situation and the national situation involving Biden and Harris.
But we still struggle to see how one of the scenarios is a coup and the other is totally fine. In our view, both are legitimate extensions of the democratic process.
Ever conscious that reasonable people can disagree, and disagree strongly, on various issues, we wanted to see what Rep. Soboleski and the Maine GOP think about our comparison.
“I don’t think the situations are similar at all. Equating a state house race in Maine to the race for president of the United States is not a good comparison,” Soboleski told us in a statement on Thursday.
“Fifty states each with their own election, election practices for [president of the United States] and the Electoral College is a highly complex endeavor with different deadlines, laws and electors for each state,” he continued. “In Maine, it is fairly common for House and Senate candidates to drop out for personal reasons before the candidate replacement deadline. It happens every year with multiple candidates on both sides of the aisle. Biden dropping out around 100 days from election day is unprecedented. I am very grateful to be able to run to represent the people of my district again.”
We appreciate his thoughtful answer. Answers like this one, which convey a dissenting opinion without launching into attacks, led us to endorse him in the 2nd district primary.
However, we still see some parallels between the two candidate replacement situations, and don’t think either amounts to a coup — even as we also recognize the differences that Soboleski has highlighted. Maine GOP Executive Director Jason Savage also highlighted some of those differences in his response to us.
“No, the two are not the same. One is there for the specific purpose of holding the spot for someone else who plans to run, while Joe Biden was literally forced out by party insiders and powerful people despite multiple declarations he was staying in. As an incumbent that ends his campaign and his presidency,” Savage said. “There is a huge difference between someone who is not an incumbent voluntarily holding a spot on the ballot versus an incumbent being forced out in a palace coup after weeks of forcefully insisting they are staying in the race.”
Clearly, the Maine Republican Party is not backing away from the “palace coup” language. And while we continue to disagree with them on that, we do appreciate their willingness to share more about their perspective, and further explain their thinking.
All Americans — journalists, politicians, political party staff, everyone — need to be able to disagree respectfully (and strongly) without conversations devolving into shouting matches or insults. As we continue in this heated campaign season, we hope substantive and respectful debate can win out over hyperbole and vitriol. That may seem unlikely, but if the conversations we’ve had surrounding this editorial are any indication, that hope is not misplaced.
