By Michael Shepherd - May 16, 2022 Was this newsletter forwarded to you? Sign up.
Good morning from Augusta. There are 29 days until Maine's June primaries.
What we're watching today
Defiant Maine Democrats showed off a strategy to stave off Republican gains in the 2022 election. The road to the November election is turning from the base-rallying phase to the general election one after the Maine Democratic Party's two-day state convention in Bangor on Friday and Saturday. The hybrid event was attended by about 1,000 people in person and online. In her speech, Gov. Janet Millsfocused on contentious points of former Gov. Paul LePage's legacy while the party at large balanced its message between the perceived success of their incumbents and burgeoning national concerns after a leaked decision showed a conservative majority of the U.S. Supreme Court ready to strike down national abortion rights. Here are some top quotes from the convention. "I spent the better part of my career ... listening to loud men talk tough to disguise their weakness and that's what I hear coming from the other side today. I've never backed down from a fight and you can be damn sure I won't do so now." This was Mills' first speech in which she took LePage and his time in the Blaine House head-on after she eschewed the kind of launch event that LePage had last September. The "loud men" line was adapted from comments she made about former President Donald Trump in 2020. In her State of the State speech in February, she contrasted her tenure with LePage's, but she never mentioned her opponent by name. Her convention speech was specific, hitting LePage on policy grounds, including Medicaid expansion, school funding and staffing levels at the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention entering the COVID-19 pandemic. Mills addressed rising costs briefly in her speech, saying they were "not fair." While saying governors cannot control international factor at play, she noted the $850 relief checks on their way to most Mainers this year. Costs have been the main focus of Republicans so far and that will not stop soon. "Bruce Poliquin himself pioneered the concept of the stolen election in 2018, casting doubt over the legality of ranked-choice voting, a process Maine voters endorsed at the ballot box." U.S. Rep. Jared Golden of Maine's 2nd District gave a fiery Friday speech to open his race, which should be one of the most hotly contested in the country. He focused on Poliquin, the former congressman who still needs to clear a June primary against longshot Caratunk Selectman Liz Caruso. This was a reference Maine's first-in-the-nation ranked-choice voting system. Golden's 2018 victory was the subject of a failed legal challenge from Poliquin, who led narrowly after the first round of voting but lost in later ones. His campaign called the tally "computer-engineered" at that time and LePage wrote "stolen election" on the certification of the results. Golden is looking to link that to former President Donald Trump's false claims of a stolen 2020 election with Biden. Poliquin declined to say whether Biden was legitimately elected when reporters asked him in March. The 2nd District went twice for Trump, which has the party eyeing the seat again in 2022. Golden still looks very comfortable hitting Trump on this issue. "[Republicans] claim that [the overturning of Roe v. Wade] does not mean a woman would lose choice and they wouldn't envision any changes in the state of Maine. ... That is bullshit." Senate President Troy Jackson, D-Allagash, had a couple of different speaking slots at the convention. He was defiant in this one on Saturday, in which he at one point derided "talking heads" who predict Democrats will have a bad 2022. His seat is among those in danger as he faces a top-tier challenge from Rep. Sue Bernard, R-Caribou. His attempt to rally Democrats on the abortion-rights issue urgent to their base is an example of his rise in state politics. First elected to the Legislature in 2002 from the socially conservative St. John Valley as an independent who took some anti-abortion votes, the labor Democrat has become a combative standard-bearer for his party and firmly aligned with them on this issue.
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What we're reading
— A second poll showed a tight race between Mills and LePage. The poll released on Friday by Pan Atlantic Research surveyed 824 likely voters in Maine between April 21 and May 5, also finding an electorate deeply concerned about the cost of living. — Sen. Susan Collins joined fellow Republican senators on a trip to Kyiv to meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Saturday. The group, led by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, will visit Helsinki on Monday with long-neutral nation of Finland seeking NATO membership. — Maine's "real-life Mayberry" is a small Oxford County town that saw a huge population jump in one year due to a wave of migration from other states. — A researcher is testing a theory that bigger Maine clams produce more eggs. If true, it could fuel new conservation methods for the flagging fishery.
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Photo of the day
Zelenskyy, center, poses with McConnell, second left, Collins, second right, and Sens. John Barrasso of Wyoming, left, and John Cornyn of Texas, right, in Kyiv on Saturday. (Ukrainian Presidential Press Office via AP)
📷Lead photo: Gov. Janet Mills speaks during the Democratic State Convention at the Cross Insurance Center in Bangor on Saturday. (Portland Press Herald photo by Ben McCanna via AP)
