The four Democratic candidates hoping to replace outgoing U.S. Rep. Jared Golden met for a second debate Thursday.
State Sen. Joe Baldacci has emerged as a leader in the field, as the latest poll from Pan Atlantic Research Survey puts him 20 points ahead of his rivals. But the other three candidates, Matt Dunlap, Paige Loud and Jordan Wood, are criticizing Baldacci’s record and said he is benefiting from help from the Democratic establishment.
The three each pushed back on the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee’s endorsement of Baldacci earlier this month, calling the move undemocratic interference in the primary.
That tension was apparent at the News Center Maine debate, which aired Thursday evening, as candidates attempted to distinguish their positions from each other — and the trio posed for a photo together, without Baldacci, after the recording Wednesday.
Whoever emerges as the winner in the June 9 Democratic primary will face former Republican Gov. Paul LePage on the ballot in November.
On healthcare and gun safety
During the panel, Dunlap, Loud and Wood reiterated their call for Medicare For All, and singled Baldacci out for his plan to expand Medicare to people once they turn 55 years old.
But Baldacci pushed back, and said he is for Medicare For All “as a goal”
“I want to break this down into workable steps that we can bring public confidence to, but also save some money,” Baldacci continued. “Because it’s been 60 years since Medicare itself was created, I don’t want to have to wait another 60 years for just coming in with one big program.”
Dunlap called Baldacci’s plan an “incremental approach,” that lost sight of the goal of expanding Medicare, “which is making sure that people don’t have to live in fear that a slip and fall on the ice is going to cause them to go bankrupt.”
Baldacci pushed back, saying a 55 and up expansion is not an insignificant change, and that there needs to be public confidence in federal programs.
The group varied in their responses to a question about Maine’s gun safety laws.
Loud said that she supports Maine’s current gun laws, including the recently enacted red flag law, and there are not any more measures she would like to see implemented.
“I’m a proud gun owner in the second district, and I support the right to own a firearm and use that firearm,” Loud said. Wood, who has the endorsement of the Maine Gun Safety Coalition, said he would support reinstating a national assault weapons ban — a measure that Golden also said he supported after the October 2023 mass shooting in Lewiston.
“I think that we need a Congress that is going to bring national federal law in line with Maine’s,” Wood said.
He said he was proud to campaign for Maine’s red flag law, and it was “disappointing” that Baldacci opposed the measure, even after the Lewiston shooting.
“I opposed some of the legislation that came down because it was a violation of civil rights,” Baldacci responded. “If people actually read the legislation, it would allow police to pick up anybody that they might even suspect is mentally ill.”
He went on to cite his voting record in the Legislature this year to protect those gun control measures.
“I have voted to retain the red flag law just the last couple of weeks, I voted to not expand gun rights to ex-felons,” Baldacci said. “I voted to ban guns in schools, but on the other issues, I have respected Maine’s Second Amendment traditions and rights of sportsmen.”
Not what, but how
Even when the candidates disagreed, it was on the implementation of policies, not the issues themselves.
Like on energy prices, Loud and Wood both spoke in support of nuclear energy, while Baldacci and Dunlap said it was too risky. But all four agreed that Maine and the country need to diversify energy sources to lower costs.
And there was still a lot of agreement across the group, similar to the last debate in April. All four spoke in opposition to the war in Iran and said that affordability is a top priority.
“What I think that most Mainers believe is no more wars, no more tariffs, and no more tax cuts for the rich,” Baldacci said.
They also agreed that the immigration actions in Maine this winter went too far.
“The way that Trump deployed ICE to Lewiston, Auburn, where I live, was not about enforcing immigration law,” Wood said. “It was about trying to instill fear and terror in people.”
Dunlap said that Congress needs to assert oversight of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
“It needs to be held accountable, and the fact that it hasn’t been is probably the reason why we’re seeing so many problems with how they conducted their business,” Dunlap said.
Loud added that more immigration to Maine could help the state’s aging workforce.
“I think it’s in our best interest to want more immigration into District 2,” she said. “It’s something that we need. We have an aging population and a shrinking workforce right now.”
And when asked about Vice President JD Vance’s recent trip to Maine, during which he made accusations of widespread Medicaid fraud, the candidates said the vice president was not acting in good faith.
Dunlap, who is currently serving as the state auditor, said that audits have found “weaknesses and deficiencies” in MaineCare, but not fraud.
“What JD Vance is really trying to do here — it’s not trying to root out fraud,” Dunlap said. “They’re trying to get rid of Medicaid, this is their excuse, this is the Trojan Horse.”
