AUGUSTA, Maine — New arguments have been put to bed and the big-name candidates facing off in Maine’s Tuesday elections spending the weekend revving up canvassers with their aides waiting nervously for voters to decide.
But the ad blitzes give a clear picture of what the candidates and their allies want you to remember going into Election Day. They amplify the main issues at the heart of the race and mix policy-focused and personal battle lines.
Here is a rundown of some of the final ads in Maine’s gubernatorial and 2nd Congressional District races.
Republicans try to tie the governor to high costs.
The party’s campaign to oust Gov. Janet Mills is about as close to a single-issue one as you can get in modern-day politics. Since the spring, rising costs and inflation — a global and national problem — have been the focal point of Republican messaging across the country.
The ad looks to blame the governor for them, repeating a falsehood that she backs raising the gas tax. (The claim is attributed to a 2021 report for the Mills administration that says the state could raise the gas tax to fund electric-vehicle initiatives, but she has never supported it.)
It also says “thanks to Mills, our heating bills are skyrocketing.” They are indeed, but heating oil prices were similar in neighboring and Republican-led New Hampshire as of Halloween. It also calls a first-in-the-nation bill aimed at shifting recycling costs to packaging producers a “grocery tax” based on one contested study that showed prices would rise under the bill.
While there are things states can do to control costs, the overall problem is not Mills’ alone. Republicans and their candidate, former Gov. Paul LePage, want to find enough specifics to make her pay the price for them. It is unclear if it will work. Only 5 percent of LePage voters chiefly blamed state officials for high costs in a poll released last week.
Democrats hit LePage on abortion with allusions to past confrontations.
Abortion has been a focus of both Mills and this group, funded by the Democratic Governors Association. The issue gained Democrats some traction after the U.S. Supreme Court ended federal abortion rights in June, although Republicans now have polling momentum nationally.
Mills is an abortion-rights supporter, while LePage is anti-abortion and spoke at rallies on that cause during his tenure. Democrats have said he would put abortion access at risk, but he has said he would not sign a 15-week ban and even that he does not oppose state Medicaid funding for abortion, a 2019 move by Mills that legislative Republicans united against.
As the ad shows, none of this has stopped Democrats from hammering the issue. It starts by showing a reel of contentious LePage clips — including when he threatened to “deck” a tracker in September — and then launches into statements and moves he made as governor.
Notably, it says LePage supported allowing states to ban abortions without exceptions for rape and incest. That refers to a 2018 interview in which he called Roe v. Wade the “law of the land,” but then said if judges can make the case for throwing it out, “let’s do it.” LePage’s campaign has said he supports those exceptions, but the court ruling did allow states to ban all abortions.
Democrats have not changed their message on this issue since LePage’s attempts at moderation, betting that it could help persuade a pool of swing voters to stick with Mills.
Republicans repeat their candidate’s line against a vulnerable congressman.
Virtually everywhere he goes, former U.S. Rep. Bruce Poliquin gives some variation of a line against U.S. Rep. Jared Golden of the 2nd District. It is mirrored in this ad from House Republicans’ campaign arm, which says Golden votes with President Joe Biden and Speaker Nancy Pelosi 83 percent of the time. That comes from a ProPublica analysis of votes from this Congress.
However, it sets aside that the share is low in relative terms. At 87 percent, Golden has voted with Biden less than any other House Democrats, according to FiveThirtyEight. He is also the most conservative member of his caucus on economic issues, VoteView finds. Golden has voted against his party often on key issues, including spending and gun control.
But Republicans have pinned many of their recent attacks on his August support for the Inflation Reduction Act, as they do in this ad with the “87,000 new IRS agents” claim. That is inflated because the total is set to come over 10 years with 50,000 workers expected to retire within five years. However, the recent vote may give conservative-leaning voters some pause.
Golden takes a difficult subject for his party head-on.
For his part, Golden is leaning into costs and his support for the Inflation Reduction Act in an atypical campaign for a Democrat. “Inflation” is the first word in his 60-second closing ad.
The ad’s anti-Biden rhetoric is the most interesting theme. He touts his vote against Biden’s Build Back Better plan “because I knew it would make inflation worse.” He later says he is “fighting Biden’s failed energy policy, forcing him to drill more American oil.”
The reference there is to the inflation bill signed by Biden. It does guarantee new drilling development in the Gulf of Mexico and Alaska that the president was skeptical of in the past while including a mix of taxes seized on by Republicans plus climate and health care benefits.
Basically all of the themes in Golden’s tough reelection race are present here, running the gamut from his attempt to separate himself from his party — and from Poliquin’s attacks — while defending recent actions taken by Democrats aimed at costs.
