Robert F. Bukaty/AP Photo
Gov. Janet Mills chats with barbershop owner Patti Burnett during a Hallowell, Maine, walking tour, May 25, 2022.
The debate over current and future gun massacres and an impending Supreme Court abortion decision will motivate many voters this November. But in the contest between Maine’s Democratic Gov. Janet Mills and former Republican Gov. Paul LePage, the economy is the chart-topper consuming Mainers’ attention and dollars. A May poll by the Portland-based firm Pan Atlantic Research identified the top issues for likely Maine voters as the cost of living, inflation, and high taxes.
Mills could be well placed for a second term. A majority of Mainers view Mills “very favorably” or “somewhat favorably”; but a third have very unfavorable views of the governor. (A majority of Mainers view President Biden “very” or “somewhat unfavorably,” no surprise there.) But for a crisis-tested Democratic incumbent going up against a well-known Trumpist chaos agent, competence may not mean much in a partisan environment that is, if anything, more supercharged than it was in 2018 when Mills beat her Republican opponent by a healthy margin.
After one term in office, Mills has Maine back in solid shape, considering the wreckage that LePage left behind after two. On her first day in office, she expanded Medicaid by executive order to about 90,000 people—in 2017, voters had approved the expansion by a referendum whose outcome LePage ignored. Although heavily criticized by Republicans over vaccine mandates, her pandemic stewardship gets high marks coupled with a big sigh of relief from many quarters that the former guy was not at the helm. Despite increasing COVID-19 case numbers, the third summer of the pandemic appears somewhat less menacing.
Last summer saw Maine’s tourism-dependent economy in recovery mode; tax revenues from lodging and meals levies were robust throughout the period, especially since New Englanders stayed close to home for vacations. Last year, tourists spent nearly $8 billion and Maine scooped up more than $1 billion in tax revenues.
What is unclear this summer is whether high airfares, gas prices, and rising COVID case counts will deter travelers. Expecting that they might not, and given the state’s limited labor pool, Mills and leaders of other tourism-reliant states pushed the Department of Homeland Security to issue an additional 35,000 H-2B visas for seasonal workers nationwide (the department has already issued about 66,000 permits).
Democrats will have to be wary of the partisan enthusiasm gap, as the party found out the hard way during last year’s Virginia gubernatorial race.
What is certain is that worker shortages have already prompted some businesses to scale back hours and offerings. With an older population, pre-pandemic Maine was susceptible to labor shortages. COVID-19 made a bad situation worse, with people 55 and older and women with children dropping out of the workforce entirely.
The public health care sector is also trying to recover from LePage’s best efforts to cripple it. In 2019, Mills resuscitated the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention, filling positions that Lepage had allowed to remain vacant; the agency lost about 25 percent of its workforce during his tenure. Despite legislation authorizing hiring more public-health nurses, LePage never staffed up to meet the legislature’s numbers.
While surging food prices are a national concern, Mainers are uniquely vulnerable to high electricity prices in a state dominated by two investor-owned electricity providers, Central Maine Power and Versant Power. The companies passed along huge supply rate price increases to customers—which in turn led to astronomical monthly increases. Some consumers saw bills more than double from one month to the next, forcing some families to choose between lights and car payments. To ease consumers’ pain, the Mills administration is dipping into a state budget surplus to send out one-time $850 pandemic relief checks to Mainers, a decision some voters have derided as an election-year gimmick.
The power companies blame the high cost of natural gas, but Maine ratepayers served by consumer-owned utilities pay considerably less, which has led to a push for voter referendum to establish an independent, nonprofit consumer-owned electric utility for areas served by the two companies (one that they are trying to beat back). Mills has attempted to mitigate the price increases with another one-time rebate for low-income people. Mills and LePage are already vulnerable on some electricity issues; both candidates have supported a controversial Central Maine Power transmission project that would bulldoze through heavily wooded Western Maine.
After LePage left office in 2019 he was headed off to retirement in Florida, missed only by his most ardent fans. Being disconnected from mucking up state government, however, turned out not to suit the former gov.
Mainers must now contemplate the implications of his return. A third LePage term would not serve this poor, white, rural state well. Scarcely a consensus-builder, LePage set the record for most vetoes by a chief executive in state history. He turned down federal money for food stamp and other programs that would have benefited low-income children and families and paid for big income tax cuts by capping pension cost-of-living adjustments for state government retirees. But LePage energizes those Mainers who perceive their lives being undermined by “takers” who whine for government services like food stamps and “free” health care. Plus, he entertains his base with outrageous statements, even as he hurts the poorest of the white poor.
So the LePage mystique is still strong within the Maine GOP; the former governor did not face a serious primary challenger. Beyond his emphasis on inflation, though, he’s treading a little lightly on some other flashpoints. The Maine constitution protects the right of a woman to terminate a pregnancy before viability, and Mills has pledged to keep abortion safe and legal. However, anti-abortion activists are ready and waiting to demand new limits should LePage head back to Augusta. LePage has expressed his “proven history of supporting life” for the moment, but is being cautious early on and appears little disposed to rile up pro-choice voters still outraged over Sen. Susan Collins’s duplicity on Supreme Court nominees.
Neither Mills nor LePage is likely to support new gun control provisions. Since 2015, Maine has allowed “concealed carry” without a permit or background checks (which, however, were only narrowly defeated in a 2016 voter referendum.) Suicide is the cause for nearly 90 percent of gun deaths; homicides account for less than 10 percent.
After Uvalde, both candidates leaned into mental-health issues on gun massacres even though most shooters do not have diagnosed mental disorders. LePage echoed the Republican “unaddressed mental-health problems” talking points. Boxed in as a rural-state Democrat, Mills underlined her support for public-safety reforms, including a 2019 “yellow flag” law that allows law enforcement to seize weapons from individuals under very strict conditions.
Overall, Democrats will have to be wary of the partisan enthusiasm gap, as the party found out the hard way during last year’s Virginia gubernatorial race. Republican candidate Glenn Youngkin was an unknown who moderated his rhetoric during the campaign, only to display his full-fledged far-right credentials once all the votes were tallied. But moderated though he was, Republican voters still turned out at a rate far exceeding the Democrats’. (And a little-known independent candidate, Sam Hunkler, a doctor, has entered the contest, which could spell trouble in a close race between the front-runners.)
LePage, who is of French-Canadian descent, has taken note. He has moderated his stance on controversial issues like immigration, courting new American voters like French-speaking African immigrants and presiding over the opening of Republican Party “multicultural centers” designed to attract new voters to the party’s ranks. According to a Portland Press Herald report, LePage has already started stepping away from President Trump, saying that he was “too harsh” on immigration, and that he himself has always “loved refugees.” LePage also denied the past derogative comments he’d made. “People coming in, I endorse them, I love them, especially when they speak French,” LePage told the Press Herald.
Mills has outraised LePage so far and leads in most recent polling by anywhere from three to eight percentage points. But no one should underestimate the ability of a two-term governor with a proven ability to embarrass his state as he hacks away at vital programs to find his way back to Augusta.
