U.S. Rep. Jared Golden of Maine’s 2nd District opposed President Joe Biden nearly two-thirds of the time in 2023, leading House Democrats by a wide margin in disagreeing with his party’s president, according to a CQ-Roll Call analysis.
It is a symptom of Biden entering 2023 with a divided Congress and his fellow Democrats holding the narrowest of majorities in the Senate. Like recent predecessors who lost one-party control in midterm elections, Biden saw the average support rate for his position on votes in Congress drop last year to more than 70 percent to nearly 95 percent in 2022.
Among Democrats, support for Biden’s position on votes was unchanged in the Senate. It dropped in the House with Republicans setting the floor agenda, but it still remained above rates set during President Barack Obama’s term despite defections from Golden and other more centrist Democrats.
He was among four House Democrats who disagreed with Biden’s position at least 30 percent of the time. Golden was in disagreement more than 62 percent of the time, with U.S. Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez of Washington, who co-chairs the centrist Blue Dog Coalition of Democrats alongside Golden, disagreeing almost 41 percent of the time.
Golden is a top target for national Republicans in a district that went for Trump in 2016 and 2020, although the third-term congressman narrowly outpolled the former president there in the latter year. Freshman state Reps. Austin Theriault of Fort Kent and Mike Soboleski of Phillips are running for the Republican nomination to face Golden in November.
Biden got a similar 95 percent support rate from House Democrats on a smaller universe of votes, since the chamber doesn’t vote on nominations. But that was down from 99 percent in the previous two years, when Democrat Nancy Pelosi of California was speaker.
On the Republican side, only nine Republicans voted with the president more than 10 percent of the time. Republicans’ average support for Biden’s position overall was 5 percent, the lowest ever for the party since CQ began calculating the figure in 1954. Democrats hit a similar low point in 2019, when they supported Trump’s position an average of 5 percent of the time.
Of the 142 votes where his position was clear, Biden lost only 14 in the Senate, with 11 coming on resolutions of disapproval under the Congressional Review Act. The resolutions are considered under expedited procedures requiring only a simple majority to pass, and covered such areas as overturning rules giving protected status to the northern long-eared bat and the lesser prairie chicken.
The Republican senators voting most frequently in agreement with the president on nominations and related procedural votes were Susan Collins of Maine at 80 percent and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska at 72 percent. They were followed by U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-South Carolina, who supported Biden 68 percent of the time.
CQ-Roll Call assigns a presidential position to votes based on whether the president expressed a clear position before members of Congress voted. There were 54 House votes that were deemed eligible under that criteria, which takes official statements and social media posts under consideration. There were more votes in the Senate, which handles presidential nominations.
Golden has also come out as the most centrist Democrat in analyses using different criteria. Recently, ABC News said he voted with Biden 48 percent of the time.
Voteview called him the most conservative Democrat on economic issues in the last Congress, although Gluesenkamp Perez has surpassed him during the session that began in 2023. Collins has been the most liberal Republican senator by that measure since former Maine Sen. Olympia Snowe retired in 2013.
Story by Niels Lesniewski and Ryan Kelly. BDN writer Michael Shepherd contributed to this report.
