LEWISTON, Maine — President Trump is popular here, and there isn’t a Whole Foods Market in sight. Yet Democrat Jared Golden is on the verge of upsetting Republican Rep. Bruce Poliquin, a potentially fatal blow to GOP efforts to hold the House majority.
Golden is squeezing Poliquin in a largely rural, blue-collar seat that delivered 51.5 percent of its vote to Trump in 2016, a finish that was 10 points better than Democrat Hillary Clinton. A state legislator and Marine combat veteran, Golden is connecting with conservative, working-class voters in Maine’s 2nd Congressional District, putting Republicans on defense in unlikely territory and improving his party’s position in the midterm elections.
“I like everything about President Trump — because I think he keeps his promises, like I’m hoping Jared will keep his promises and like Jared has kept his promises in the state legislature,” Rick Cailler, president of the Lewiston Firefighters Association and a self-described lifelong Republican, told the Washington Examiner on Thursday after his union endorsed Golden. “If I felt he was a lockstep Democrat, I wouldn’t be here today.”
Voters head to the polls on Tuesday for critical midterm elections that could alter the balance of power on Capitol Hill. The Republicans are on track to hold the Senate. But the Democrats appear poised to erase the GOP’s 23-seat majority and capture the House. A revolt among upper-middle-class and wealthy suburbanites is fueling this blue tide.
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The college-educated voters that predominate in these affluent enclaves have historically voted Republican for Congress. But these districts are turning toward the Democrats out of disgust with Trump’s provocative behavior and coarse, culture-war politics.
Dave Wasserman, a nonpartisan analyst who monitors House races for the Cook Political Report, first discovered in a study he conducted in 2011 the correlation between upscale supermarket chain Whole Foods and regions of the country where the Democratic Party was steadily gaining vote share. This election cycle, Wasserman’s Whole Foods theory has been a good indicator of suburban Republicans in trouble.
“Democrats are doing very well anywhere that’s within a 20-minute drive of a Whole Foods Market,” he said.
But the apparent political realignment underway in suburbia doesn’t fully explain why Democrats are on the cusp of taking back the House after eight years in the wilderness.
There’s nary a Whole Foods in Maine’s sprawling 2nd District. Here, and in similar seats that swung from President Barack Obama in 2012 to Trump four years later, Democrats are threatening because they nominated compelling candidates who have embraced their voters’ cultural conservatism and tapped into the populist angst with Washington that still runs deep.
“He respects the people that he meets, and he genuinely respects them, and when people feel respected, they know that they will be heard,” said Peggy Rotundo, a veteran Democrat from Lewiston who served with Golden in the Maine Legislature. “People want to be represented by people that respect them and will be there for them when they need that representative, and Jared is that person.”
Republicans are saying, essentially, that being a nice guy isn’t enough. Ideology matters, Poliquin adviser Brent Littlefield insisted, arguing that Golden, who served combat tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, is too liberal for a conservative-leaning district like Maine’s 2nd.
“He has zero business or job-creating experience,” Littlefield said. “Golden is for Bernie Sanders’ socialist healthcare plan.” Littlefield was referring to Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., who favors a government-run healthcare system.
On a rainy afternoon five days before the election, approximately 500 Golden campaign volunteers were fanned out across a district that covers more than 27,000 square miles to lock down votes. Public polling is sparse, but political insiders in both parties agree that the contest is a pure tossup.
Golden, 36, the assistant majority leader of the Maine House of Representatives, spent Thursday hustling from an official legislative event to celebrate a new, state-funded lead abatement program, to a campaign event where he received the endorsement of local firefighters, to a walk along Lisbon Street, Lewiston’s depressed main shopping drag, to shake hands with voters.
In an interview, Golden, who spent two years working for Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, on homeland security issues, scoffed at the Poliquin campaign’s charges that he’s a doctrinaire liberal in league with the national Democratic Party.
Golden, describing himself as a “labor Democrat,” said he would oppose House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., becoming the speaker; opposes banning AR-15 semi-automatic rifles; opposes raising the age limit to purchase firearms; supports Trump’s decision to deploy the military to the southern border to block the incoming caravan of Central American migrants; and backs the president’s hard-line policy on trade.
“I’m on board with a lot of what he’s doing,” Golden said, adding: “I believe in climate change, I believe that we’ve got to protect our environment. I also am going to fight tooth and nail to protect mill jobs and to protect our logging industry and others. To me, it’s who do you represent? And, the easiest answer for me is, the people that live here.”
