By Michael Shepherd - Aug. 5, 2022
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📷 Former U.S. Rep. Bruce Poliquin listens to House Minority Whip Steve Scalise, R-Louisiana, speak at a press conference at the Bangor Waterfront on June 28, 2022. (BDN photo by Linda Coan O'Kresik)

Good morning from Augusta. There are 95 days until Maine's November elections.

What we're watching today

"Not a moderate" is one of the major arguments in another Maine political race. An interview with the conservative Breitbart News provides a good illustration of how former U.S. Rep. Bruce Poliquin is plotting to get his old seat back in Maine's 2nd District. It is emerging as a by-the-book Republican campaign putting costs and inflation at the center and linking his opponent, Rep. Jared Golden, to national Democrats.

That is not such an easy task with Golden, who has taken high-profile votes against his party on the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan Act and the failed $1.7 trillion "Build Back Better" plan, as well as gun control and police reform proposals, the latter of which helped him lock down an endorsement from the Maine Lodge of the Fraternal Order of Police last month.

Poliquin answered votes that with a refrain that Maine political observers will be familiar with: "He's not a moderate."

"He sells himself that way, but a moderate would not be part of spending trillions and trillions of dollars that is printed or borrowed that is driving up inflation," he told Breitbart.

We have seen this before. As Democrats warred against U.S. Sen. Susan Collins in 2020, their central point was that the Republican was an integral piece of her team. Even if she did not explicitly support all of their policy goals, her votes for judicial nominees advanced them and voting for her was a vote for Mitch McConnell to control the Senate, the argument went.

"Not a moderate" was an often-used term to describe her as well. But she won. Moderation is becoming less and less of a part of politics, particularly in Congress, where bills are mostly brought to the floor only if leaders think they will prevail or if they want to put members on the record. We are even seeing swing votes disappear from the Maine Legislature.

The definition of "moderate" is subjective, but if there are true moderates left in Washington, Golden and Collins are good candidates. Both are the members of their caucuses closest to the political center in the current Congress, according to VoteView. Poliquin was more strident during his two terms in Congress.

The two delegation members still generally align with their parties. Golden and progressive Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-New York, voted together 85 percent of the time in the last Congress, just a shade under the 87 percent alignment between Collins and McConnell, ProPublica says. We are living in an era where even that scant level of disagreement is high, plus many of Golden's swing votes came on many of big issues of the day.

Early polling from the spring showed Golden in a good position and drawing notable swing support. But the national environment looks skewed against Democrats, with FiveThirtyEight only calling the incumbent a narrow favorite in a toss-up race. Poliquin seems to be betting that party affiliation will be an anvil for Golden in the conservative-leaning 2nd District. As we have seen before, that is not always a safe bet.

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News and notes

The Motor City Madman is in our pages arguing for Sunday hunting.

— Archconservative rocker Ted Nugent wrote a Bangor Daily News Op-Ed on Friday arguing that Maine's new right to food should allow Sunday hunting.

— Nugent is the public face of Hunter Nation, a Kansas-based group funding a Maine lawsuit making this argument and lobbies aggressively to liberalize hunting laws across the country. Here's your soundtrack.

— The group is out in front of others in trying to revoke the Sunday hunting ban here, including the Sportsman's Alliance of Maine, which supports Sunday hunting in but opposed the most recent legislative bid to enshrine it.

Here's how the TV ad battles are aligning in Maine's big races.

— Gov. Janet Mills was the first top-tier candidate to go live TV ads during Maine's 2022 general election cycle this week, matching nearly the exact time that she went up four years ago after emerging from a large Democratic primary.

— The Maine Republican Party has already reserved $3.9 million in advertising time, though none has been used yet. That would dwarf 2018 levels and signifies an unprecedented level of spending on a state election.

— If past is prologue, we will see Golden up soon, since his first 2020 run began on Aug. 4. Poliquin began advertising Aug. 10 in 2018.

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What we're reading

— Big-name Maine politicians are ducking questions on whether Biden or Trump should run again for president in 2024. Rep. Chellie Pingree, a Democrat from the 1st District, was the only one to support a Biden run.

— Here's what huge abortion-rights turnout in Kansas could mean for Maine's 2022 elections.

— Maine doctors are hearing more from patients worried forever chemicals are making them sick. The conversations are not always easy.

— Versant Power is proposing a $10.50 average monthly rate increase starting next summer, an idea that Mills immediately opposed.

Photo of the day

📷 Mindy Powell of Spruce Head puts a temporary tattoo on 2-year-old Ezra Thorne of Thomaston on Thursday at the Maine Lobster Festival in Rockland. (BDN photo by Abigail Curtis)

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