Racist Former Maine Gov Launches US House Bid

Bangor’s ABC affiliate reports:

Former Republican governor Paul LePage is running for Maine’s 2nd Congressional District, according to a filing with the Federal Election Commission.

LePage led the state from 2011 through 2019. During his reelection bid in 2014, LePage was voted back to the Blaine House with the most votes of any governor in Maine history. In 2022, however, LePage lost a gubernatorial run against Democratic Maine Governor Janet Mills by a margin of 13 percent.

Democratic U.S. Representative Jared Golden is representing Maine’s 2nd Congressional District for his fourth term, after narrowly beating Republican challenger Austin Theriault in a ranked-choice tabulation in November 2024.

From a 2022 Washington Post report:

A proudly unvarnished politician who has claimed that he was “Donald Trump before Donald Trump,” LePage caused his most notable uproar in 2016, midway through his second term, with a series of comments about race and drug dealing.

LePage claimed — falsely — that more than 90 percent of people arrested for drug-trafficking in the overwhelmingly White state of Maine were Black or Hispanic.

He also called Black and Hispanic people “the enemy” and said that many out-of-state drug traffickers passing through Maine “impregnate a young White girl before they leave.”

LePage appeared here many times for his vitriol during the battle for same-sex marriage. In 2019, he gained scathing headlines for charging the state for multiple meals and stays at Trump’s DC hotel. In 2016, he declared that people of color are the enemy and “you shoot at the enemy.” Also in 2016, he left a voicemail for a Maine Democrat calling him a “socialist cocksucker.”

Former Maine Gov. Paul LePage Files for Congressional Run Against Rep. Jared Golden

[image or embed]

— Ian Hansen (@ianhansen.bsky.social) May 5, 2025 at 2:00 AM