Ahead of Maine’s 2026 Senate race, which could have major national implications, the state’s governor has announced her bid with a clear promise.
Ahead of the 2026 election season, Democratic Governor Janet Mills, first elected in 2018 and re-elected in 2022, is constitutionally limited to two consecutive terms and cannot run again for governor.
She has made it clear she seems a Senate term .
Read More: Janet Mills Pledges Just One Senate Term if Elected | https://q1065.fm/janet-mills-one-senate-term/?utm_source=tsmclip&utm_medium=referral
@nature1970
Do you have a personal preference? The folks there seem to really like Collins and she is seen as a very moderate Republican.
For Mills to run just on knocking Collins for helping Trump push his agenda through does not seem that good of a strategy to me because Collins cannot be counted as an automatic vote for Trump. This frustrates the Republicans but the folks in Maine like that.
So, I think Mills needs something else to stand out from Collins.
Has Collins even decided to run? I have not heard if she has.
Also, are there no younger folks for Maine to run? I do not get why most states do not try to get some younger folks in office.
The way she handled COVID crises left Maine in a good position we were near last for confined cases and deaths related to COVID , out side of a few cities Maine is one of the safest places to live.
We have always been a tourist destination but her leadership has broadened year round residence here.
Several innovative ideas to expand housing and dealing with drug addiction and homeless has led to a robust year round economy with very little unemployment. She has done well here as governor, Collins has not been available for us her focus seems to be in Washington where her husbands lobby firm centers she has had a long time to make a difference and it seems new blood is needed.
My concerns with Mills is she is chuck shummers pick and will be beholding to new York interest....
Gotcah. I glanced at few various things online and it seems kind of scattered on the surface.
Yeah, she overwhelmingly won the governorship because the folks are happy with her it looks like.
It seems one of the things they liked is 'standing up to Trump' because he threatened to pull funds because she supports trans guys being allowed to play in female sports.
I also saw there was a lot of controversy with her budget and not being very bipartisan. Under Mills the budget has gone up 85%. Then there was an issue with the way she went about addressing the $1/2B gap in the budget. Even the $150M that was bridged with the addition fees and taxes on the fisherman and things like that were not bipartisan.
Low hanging fruit like cigarette taxes were obvious since Maine has the highest smoker rate in the NE. They like to smoke.
But bumping up the rate on marijuana may not work out as well. Now more may go the old-fashioned route.
The additional streaming taxes may work out okay. Folks are going to use that legally.
So, at some point Maine will have to address the rest of the budget gap. Even though she was promoting how she did not support more income or sales taxes -- how can this be avoided in the future. Now the next governor may well be forced to it because of her budget increases.
But on the other side the economy did seem to do very well under her, comparatively speaking.
It was underperforming the national average growth under LePage. But now has been one of the states outperforming the national average GDP growth.
She apparently recovered all of the 100K jobs lost during Covid.
The Maine Jobs and Recovery Plan seemed to really charge the economy.
It also seems that the schools have dropped way off lately. Down from 19th to last in some studies.
Students just had their lowest math and reading score in 30 years.
Then the homelessness has reached record levels at a time when housing is the most unaffordable.
Crime has mostly come down it seems.
So, apparently she did enough to keep the folks liking her and not enough to encourage great opposition in a candidate.
But the question may come down to whether Collins runs or not.
If Collins runs can she point out enough of the good stuff she has done for Maine on the federal level. If so, can she adequately juxtapose it with some of the things Mills did not address while governor.
For Mills to run for a federal position, will it be enough to say she will 'stand up to Trump'? Collins can very easily counter by saying she has already done that very consistently when it benefited Maine.
There are quite a few but this is a Mills version Collins race everything else is to promote awareness of them during primary and general elections.
Mills is very much a contender in this match up she has the political capital and the outside pac money to match the Collins fund raising machines.
That being said there is a very vocal independent voice in Maine and much larger than the silver in the rest of America that can side one way or other. Case in point Angus King is the other senator and an independent in Congress.
Younger candidates are around but with our name recognition they are a muted point when it comes to elections, we have many outside of state money dumping millions into Media to promote their chosen candidates.
Susan Collins is the Republican party candidate.
And Janet Mills is the Democratic pick everything else is just to promote awareness of these two positions.
Collins voted to keep open the government this spring and Summer did as well so in that issue it seems the two parties aligned today. Democrats won't budge on positions to protect the health care industry and the clients right to be able to access medical procedures through low income insurance programs.
This should be a mutual acceptance that nurses need to be paid and us citizens have the right to medical treatments.
The trans athlete in high school to me is a show a shiny coin to deflect from the real issues. Main argument is does a human being have the right to self identity. And how far does this right reach. Without the department of education at the federal level and Trump's assurance that states have the right to regulate public schools k-12 then the federal government in their own position has no right to dictate local high school sports and should fall on states position and laws governing discrimination.
So Libby in Auburn forceful position of not accepting the trans athlete should not be sanctured or condemned but apart of legislation debate.
And the other sides position of non discrimination must be heard as the state works out the language of the law.
Is our economy going well Yes, are areas of state still struggling Yes. But literally you can drive down the road 100 miles in any direction and see 100 help wanted signs.
The movement of minimum wage to meet cost of living is a welcome sight to many low levels unskilled workers. They can now afford to live in the state they work for.
The number one employer in our state is the state government they employed more people than all others. Doge cuts scare that collection of individuals and they will vote with the Governor because it directly affects their paychecks.
Now this cycle is voter integrity question 1 this is a sided debate with Mills saying no and Collins saying yes. And after a case of 250 ballots being mailed to wrong address and the nothing to see here stand of our states government officials then the question must be asked who else got one of these ballot stuffing opportunities???
But that may be over my pay grade....
Yes sir. I get that they are the well known ones.
But this is a problem in a lot of states, not just Maine.
But both are them are considerably older. I just think it would be better to run a young energetic person that the state could anticipate having the position for many years to come.
These jobs are getting older and older on average. They often seem out of touch to me. I get that experience means something.
But it is odd how these are the jobs people are okay with very old people keeping, as important as they are.
I agree the healthcare issue is important there. But the cost to illegals does not seem to faze the Democrats when considering it overall. The cost without them is just too high already.
The trans issue far from simply a distracting issue. You can 'self-identify' as whatever you like, but it should not have to adversely affect others. It also should not be forced onto other individuals simply to cater to someone that has a mental issue just so you do not offend them. Yes, get them some help nd not chop off functioning body parts for no reason. This just becomes Avery slippery slope that bleeds into all sorts of other aspects of society.
But this is just one social example of the difference and I am not sure how much it matters in Maine that is an older state.
You are very correct. The last time I was in the states I was in a few states and saw plenty of help wanted signs. But people feel with inflation and costs of everyday goods that they are not seeing their wages rise accordingly. So, some of those jobs they think are not 'good' enough. I agree they should take the jobs. But that is another issue.
The trick would be how to get higher paying jobs to Maine as opposed to some of the other states that people are willing to move jobs to.
I do not think you can ever make minimum wage jobs be 'living wage' jobs. That just is not the intent of those jobs.
Yes, the state or federal jobs are huge employers everywhere. That is a problem for a lot of reasons.
I am not sure what you mean about the voter integrity thing. I would have to look into what happened.
@raiders
Maine USA, works differently than other areas in as much as a trusted partner ship of neibors. It means if something happens to one it happens to all.
And in group protection a rule is enforced protect women and children. This is the basic value of our culture.
It doesn't make much sense to anyone anywhere else but what the women wish the men do.
That being said, trans athlete in highschool is not a priority to me.
There will be a space port in presque isle area and a 5 billion investment in a AI data base at loring air Base in limestone. This is infrastructure Susan Collins and Chelle pingree give us a representative in appropriation comitee house and Senate. This will add 1000 engineers to that area with families. And boost economic support for regional health.
This is what matters here... Not really interested in high school sports.....
I think protecting women and children are big on most states minds.
I get the trans athlete is not a priority to you because it is not to a lot of folks. These things are pushed just to cater to a very, very small but loud contingency and the rest of the folks just do not care. Maybe it should matter more. There is something to be said about protecting women(girls) and children. As you say, even in Maine that is a priority.
Yes, it is so very, very hard to get engineers to a place like Maine.
A few years ago I had a big discussion with a couple of companies about that problem. One of the issues at the time was they wanted to move the engineers from Washington to California. Some folks wanted to keep them in Washington.
My whole point to them was that it is very, very hard to draw young college graduates to Washington. At some point, you cannot pay them enough. California is simply too big of a draw for a lot of young, especially guys, to go to a sunny place with great weather and all of the things California has to offer. A lot of these students are coming from engineering schools that are in bad weather locations already. Then you have the older engineers that already are looking for somewhere with nice weather to retire to.
My contention for Maine would be to draw in more data centers. That is a huge up and coming opportunity with AI on the rise. I think they have 7 or 8 currently, but 2 are fairly small. But Maine is a colder state and has a lot of open area and is one of the states that does not have a water shortage.
If you are not a state that has infrastructure in place, or great schools (like engineering), it is hard to draw businesses in that will pay well. I like Maine and I think it would be a good place to raise a family. But I like the outdoors a lot even in the winter. But if the school system is not even middle-tier anymore that hurts also.
The main incentive they would have to use would be tax incentives for the businesses. They cannot really do it for the workers because Maine has a state income tax. And as I pointed out above, Maine will need more taxes soon to address the budget gaps in the years ahead.
But, you are correct, they need to draw in some decent paying jobs somehow.
we have liberal arts and business school of a high caliber in division 3 small private colleges Colby Bates Bowdoin and a number of prep schools to further post secondary education.
Our public schools are not unreasonable by and large with UMO the center for engineering programs.
However we are very close to Massachusetts and it's institutions of technology. Many students go there completing a bachelor's program their for masters or doctorates .
The world of information collection and sharing is always a very grey area as we work through the weeds of assumed right to privacy and the mass collection of data and their connection in the community.
It becomes more of ethical conduct of the owners and this leads to aggressive algorithms behavior in searching data bases for potential customers in areas of marketing and earth observations systems.
This is that we need the intelligence but we need to set exacting parameters on the future of resources use.....
Besides fresh water and water tower cooling systems we have a enormous supply of sea water along the coast.
Near katadhin iron works there are ice caves . The glaciers of old are still in tact in that region and available cooling conduction for processors are available, the grids are stabilized with wind milk and solar facilities, we have a vast tracts of lithium for battery storage to further stabilize the grid and create the impenetrable fortress utilizing limestone bunker systems, when air Base was fully operational it was the lead for nuclear strike air craft and missiles the facility is an emense underground bunker systems that with the Moscow radar site provided shelter for pilots their wives and families as well as supportive personal.
That air Base is owned as a government financial center and was never released to local or state control.
With its abandoned status many who worked and live their pilgrimage to the old site but it has attracted unwanted residence as well. And many stories of what lurks in the tunnels is widespread gossip. Although rain has been low here the water of Maine is plentiful under the surface and very Cold. As you dig further the earths core warms up quickly and the use of freon could be utilized in the closed cooling systems.
These features and resources makes the site suitable for large computers to remain composed in existence and should be exploited for the BENEFIT of humanity.
Yes, that is exactly my point.
But you have to overcome what they term the NIMBY (Not In My Backyard) attitude.
There are energy and resources concerns. There are also the general anti-globalistic sentiment.
These are things that are fairly big in rural areas. But more so in places that are big on outdoors and conservation, like Maine.
But at some point if you want folks to get out of poverty they need jobs and you will have to offset those environmental concerns with growth in what is the up-and-coming industries.
Google, Microsoft, and Amazon recently canceled data center projects in Indiana, Arizona, and Wisconsin.
Some of the pushback in the local areas were that other areas have seen their electricity costs go up.
These hyperscalers have to get the local electric cost to net zero and get the community on board.
These are three of the monster AI companies that are huge in this sector.
This would be an ideal time for Maine to step in and encourage them to build there.
I think if the local government and the companies came together to get the goodwill of the community it could work out nicely for all of them.
Established in 1995,
Hot Forum Topics
