OLD ORCHARD BEACH, Maine — Seated before a large crowd of conservatives, Bobby Charles lifted his hand more than a foot off a table to illustrate the number of executive orders he said the next governor should issue when they take office.
One would be to “wire brush” undocumented immigrants out of Maine and shut down hundreds of illegal Chinese-linked marijuana grows, giving leftover homes to homeless veterans. He would get drug traffickers out of the state in a short two years.
“Then we’re going to cut the income tax, and we’re going to cut the property tax, and we’re going to rebuild our schools, and that’s it,” Charles, a Leeds resident who worked in the administrations of former presidents Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush, said.
Charles, an Ivy League-educated lawyer, did not elaborate much on how he would do all this. Executive orders are generally limited to enforcing existing laws. But a crowd of roughly 200 people inside Dunegrass Golf Club gave the Republican the biggest applause of the night at a forum with four other declared and potential candidates for governor.
It showed how the candidates are nodding to President Donald Trump’s great influence on the grassroots. But insiders and voters are also recognizing the difficulty of winning next year’s open gubernatorial race in a Democratic-leaning state. Those two things could be at odds.
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The Republican field is far from settled. More Democrats are all but certain to join the few figures who have so far announced bids to succeed Gov. Janet Mills, a Democrat termed out of office next year. The Cook Political Report is currently rating the race as “likely” Democratic, but Maine has not consecutively elected governors of the same party since 1959.
Thursday evening’s forum in Old Orchard Beach offered early looks at the speaking styles and preferred talking points of two declared candidates, Charles and Robert Wessels, along with three potential contenders — entrepreneur Owen McCarthy, lobbyist and former Maine Senate Majority Leader Garrett Mason and real estate firm owner David Jones.
It was a friendly crowd at the event put on by Common Sense for Maine, a group led in part by conservative radio host Ray Richardson. The jocular candidates agreed often. For example, each advocated for a Maine version of “DOGE,” Trump’s Elon Musk-led effort to slash government agencies.
Mason, a Lisbon Falls resident who was his party’s runner-up in the 2018 gubernatorial primary, seemed to check more provocative statements from Charles by noting it is “fun to say we’re going to rip the Maine Department of Education apart.”
“That’s not the answer. The answer is to tell the school boards that they have power and teach them how to use it,” Mason said to light applause, adding “that’s not the popular opinion.”
Jones, the broker-owner of F.O. Bailey Real Estate in Falmouth, focused on the Maine Department of Health and Human Services being “too big,” and he brought up his early support for Trump by noting he started the political action committee Making Maine Great Again to help back the president in 2016. But Jones also warned against those who get “sucked up into a wedge issue” and cited Reagan’s “80/20 rule” in saying “we’ve got to reach across the aisle.”
Maine Republicans who are not running for governor said Friday they felt it was too early to back one candidate, instead focusing on preferred qualities. Tackling state budget issues is among their top priorities. Rep. Barbara Bagshaw, R-Windham, said next year’s nominee needs to be “fiscally responsible, because we are in big trouble financially.”
Rep. Ken Fredette, R-Newport, a former House minority leader who ran for governor in 2018, would prefer a nominee with business experience who “has the courage to hold the line on spending.” But Fredette emphasized the field on both sides will grow.
Potential Republican candidates still on the sidelines include 2018 nominee Shawn Moody, state Rep. Laurel Libby of Auburn, entrepreneurs Ben Midgley and Jonathan Bush and state Sen. Jim Libby of Standish, who has said he will announce a run next week.
Fredette worries that could lead to a party primary winner receiving under 30 percent of the vote and complicate electability concerns against the Democratic successor to Mills.
“When people aren’t realistic in terms of saying what they’re going to do … I don’t think that helps much,” Fredette said.
