Former Maine governor moves to challenge vulnerable House Democrat

Former Maine Gov. Paul LePage (R) filed paperwork Sunday to run against Rep. Jared Golden (D-Maine) for Maine’s 2nd Congressional District next year.

LePage served as the governor of Maine from 2011-19; he ran against Gov. Janet Mills (D) for a third term in 2022, but he was defeated by 13 points. LePage resided in Florida after his second term as governor; he moved back to Maine to run against Mills for the 2022 cycle and returned to the Sunshine State after he lost the gubernatorial race.

LePage, 76, is the first major Republican to enter the race to succeed Golden, who has represented the district since 2019 and won his last reelection in November by less than 3,000 votes.

Maine holds semi-open primary elections but is unique in that it uses ranked-choice voting in the general election. Ranked-choice voting, which has received heavy criticism from Republicans in recent years, requires voters to rank their candidates.

If no candidate outright wins more than 50 percent of the vote in the first round of tabulation, the candidate who was the lowest vote-getter is eliminated and voters who cast the eliminated candidate as the first choice then have their votes distributed to their second-choice candidate.

The process repeats until one candidate wins more than half of the vote.

Golden, a 42-year-old conservative Democrat, represents one of the country’s most competitive districts but has been able to win nail-biter races in the past.

The nonpartisan election handicapper Cook Political Report rates Golden’s seat a “toss-up.”