Maine has a gubernatorial election this November that in some ways presages a possible Biden-Trump rematch in 2024. Incumbent Democratic Gov. Janet Mills is a moderate who’s upset her party’s progressive wing; former Gov. Paul LePage is a vulgar, fact-challenged, norm-busting, and not-always-in-control figure who has called himself “Trump Before Trump,” wants his old office back, and has a stalwart, unshakable base.
I talked to NBC News digital politics reporter Alex Steitz-Wald about the race for this story over at NBC.
For more on the upcoming race consider this story I wrote for POLITICO. On LePage’s operatic and revealing biography, dive into this 10,000-word bio I did for the old Portland Phoenix back in 2011. And for more on Janet Mills — scion of a western Maine political family allied with the late Republican Sen. Margaret Chase Smith — there’s this bio I wrote for the Portland Press Herald when she was running for office last time around.
COLIN WOODARD is a New York Times bestselling author and award-winning journalist. He is the author of six books that have been translated into a dozen foreign languages and inspired an NBC television drama. He is currently Director of Nationhood Lab at the Pell Center for International Relations and Public Affairs at Salve Regina University. As State and National Affairs Writer at the Portland Press Herald and Maine Sunday Telegram he won a 2012 George Polk Award and was a finalist for a Pulitzer Prize in 2016. He is a contributing editor at POLITICO and his work has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Economist, Smithsonian and dozens of other major publications.