Political Pulse

This is an excerpt from a lengthy conversation with Golden, a Democrat, about what motivated his decision not to seek a fifth term representing Maine's 2nd District. The 43-year-old said he has no immediate plans to seek elected office after more than a decade in Congress and the Maine Legislature. But he also isn't ruling it out.

Maine Public chief politics correspondent Steve Mistler and fellow politics correspondent Kevin Miller recently sat down with Rep. Jared Golden for a lengthy conversation about hyper-partisanship and his decision not to run again.

AdImpact, an organization tracking political ads, estimates the Maine Senate contest could help draw more than $300 million in spending on congressional races in the state next year. That’s nearly a third more than the record-smashing amount spent in 2020 when Republican U.S. Sen. Susan Collins secured her fifth term.

The longest federal government shutdown in U.S. history is over. But with little to show for it, the mostly Democratic politicians who ended the standoff now face intense backlash.

On Tuesday, Maine voters will settle long-running policy debates over voter ID and guns during an off-year election that has been overshadowed by events in DC and primary contests that won't be decided until next year.

For nearly two months, Graham Platner’s bid for the U.S. Senate was marked by momentum and bravado as the political newcomer drew big crowds to his town halls and he channeled Democratic voters’ hopes for a newer, brasher kind of candidate. During an interview in late September, he said, “I’ll just say, it’s been very surreal.” Reality has arrived over the past week. Now comes a test of Democratic primary voters' risk aversion.

Proponents of Question 2 argue that the existing law — often referred to as Maine’s yellow flag law — is a failed experiment that was not used to stop a gunman in Lewiston from killing 18 people and injuring and traumatizing countless others in 2023 despite warnings about his deteriorating mental health.

Gov. Janet Mills ended months of speculation this week by officially entering the Democratic primary to challenge Republican U.S. Sen. Susan Collins next fall.

The competing narratives about Question 1’s true objectives and potential impacts are perhaps best epitomized by the names of the groups leading the fight on either side: Voter ID for ME and the Save Maine Absentee Voting Coalition.

There’s a bonafide primary contest among Democrats in the Maine race for the U.S. Senate. And one of the leading contestants, Gov. Janet Mills, isn't even an official candidate yet.