Governor Paul LePage is term-limited and his term is up in 2018. So the question is, why wouldn’t he think about a Senate run? “The Republican governor told “The Howie Carr Show” that he was “thinking about it very strongly,” according to the Portland Press Herald. “I think we need leadership in Washington. Yeah, I might do that.””
As to whether he’d win… maybe. Just maybe. Angus King is popular enough, but he’s a freshman and a stealth Democrat in a state that is perhaps more comfortable with electing liberal Republicans. Not that Paul LePage is a liberal; but he also handily outperformed the polls in 2014 despite being in a honest-to-God three-way race. Nominating for Senate a two-term governor who was term-limited out anyway is a perfectly sensible party gambit. Heck, that was more or less Sen. Angus King’s story in the first place.
Plus, who else would the R’s run in Maine? Do they hold any other statewide office?
All other statewide offices are elected by the legislature, so not right now. Between 2010-12 there were but the only stand out, Treasurer Bruce Poliquin, just barely got elected to Congress.
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Otherwise, it the usual crowd of State Reps/Senators, and community bigwigs.
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It’s worth noting that Angus King is and always has been unreasonably popular, and remains the ONLY governor to win by majority vote since 1982.
LePage came very close to winning a Majority. ( 48%) and he actually won the most votes in Maine History.
A two way race between LePage and Michaud would’ve still resulted in a LePage victory.
If Dems run a strong candidate against King in 2018 while LePage is running then chances of winning that seat are pretty good.
Oh, I know. I live here. The fun thing is, the Dems really don’t have anyone either. They ran Michaud last year because he’s all they had.
Their next-in-line crowd is a bunch of shameless[even more than usual] hacks from the southern[i.e.”BostonNorth”]districts. Mark Eaves are Justin Alfond are term-limmited out, but Rep. Pingree from D1 may retire so I think they may give that a shot.