For four election cycles, Jared Golden won a congressional district that, on paper, should have landed with Republicans. Now he is leaving, and the question hanging over Maine’s second district — one that could help determine control of the House — is whether any Democrat can do what he did.

Democrats are struggling to find a clean answer.

Maine’s second district, stretching from the New Hampshire state line to the Canadian border, has a uniqueness ready-made to upend political expectations. It is a seat that supported Trump in three consecutive elections — including by around nine points in 2024 — but also Democratic President Barack Obama in each of his White House runs as well. It is rural yet winnable for Democrats, even as the party has struggled in similar terrain elsewhere in the country. 

“I don’t think it’s necessarily moving in a Republican direction as much as it’s moving in a direction of anti-establishment politics and electing anti-establishment candidates,” said Austin Theriault, a former NASCAR driver and Republican who lost his race for the seat in 2024. 

Without Golden on the ballot, Republicans believe they finally have their opening. Their candidate — former Gov. Paul LePage, a 77-year-old regarded as Trump-like well before it was popular on the right — may be well-suited to a district that has repeatedly rewarded candidates who have broken with the norm. 

Democrats’ path to making a pick on their side is more fraught. Even though the party is well-positioned to capitalize on traditional anti-incumbency anger against Republican-controlled Washington, the northern Maine district may prove difficult to hold. 

Maine Democrats will choose their nominee Tuesday in a primary that has been targeted with more than a $500,000 from a vague outside group that did not exist until a month ago, and in which House Democrats’ official campaign arm took the relatively unusual step of siding with state Sen. Joe Baldacci ahead of the vote. 

“The fact is the Democrats can win this district,” Baldacci said. “But it takes a certain independent-minded path to get there.” 

But that intervention from Washington inflamed his challengers, who argue that a candidate carrying the party establishment’s blessing may be exactly the wrong messenger for this moment.

“What we need our nominee to be is really be able to separate from the state and national party establishments,” said Jordan Wood, one of Baldacci’s opponents and a former congressional staffer who has had roles with the group End Citizens United. “…A candidate who is blessed, and controlled, and of the Democratic Party establishment is not the type of candidate to win in this district.” 

Along with Wood, the race has a pair of progressive-focused candidates: Matt Dunlap, the state auditor, and Paige Loud, who, according to her campaign website, is a social worker and a Cherokee Nation citizen. Dunlap broke with his party last year when he initially entered the race as a primary challenger to Golden. 

“The Democratic Party is in a lot of different places right now, but I think one place people are ready to move from is the safe bet,” Dunlap told MS NOW. 

From a distance, Maine may look reliably blue, but carries a certain level of unpredictability — as in 2020, when GOP Sen. Susan Collins won a fifth term in Washington despite Democrat Joe Biden carrying the state that year.

This year, that reputation for political independence will feature prominently in both the race for Golden’s former seat and one upstaging it on the national stage: efforts to unseat Collins in the Senate.

In recent days, that Senate race has generated a fair amount of turbulence. Graham Platner — an untested outsider backed by progressives and aiming to become the first Democrat to defeat Collins — has faced a wave of national headlines stemming from reports about his exchanging sexual messages with women other than his wife, and reports in The New York Times about his past relationships with women, including allegations of a physical altercation, which he has denied. 

Platner entered the campaign a virtual unknown. Now, he may define Maine’s races down the ballot.

The allegations have hung over the Democratic candidates in Maine’s second district.

Baldacci, when asked about Platner, said he was focused on his own race. 

Dunlap pointed to policy before acknowledging his concerns about Platner plainly. “I think some of these recent revelations have made people a little bit wary,” Dunlap said. “Like, is there anything else?”

Wood, who ran for the Senate this cycle before shifting to the House race, said last week that he wanted to speak with Platner. “I believe that [he] understands the responsibility he’s taking on to run in this extremely important Senate race,” Wood said. But he also added that “I read The New York Times yesterday … some things are brought up that I’m very concerned about. I’m somebody who believes women, and that’s where we start. Graham said that these are not true. I haven’t talked to Graham personally yet, but expect to soon, and want to hear what he has to say.”

The Democratic primary to succeed Golden also contains its own complications. Baldacci has national party backing, but his fundraising had been rather tepid, according to federal campaign finance filings. Wood has a commanding financial advantage, but Washington ties have become a liability at a time when distance from Congress is a selling point.

Then there is Dunlap, who was a lonely voice of Democratic checks and balances on Trump’s voter fraud commission that fell apart during the president’s first term. But his willingness to try and chase Golden from Congress has won him detractors in a seat where a moderate sensibility may prove to be an easier pitch. 

Throughout the year, the second district race has carried the stigma of whether Golden was the only Democrat who would have been able to win the seat in 2026. And that is a dynamic likely to follow Democrats all the way to the November election. 

“I think that both parties are viewed not in the best light,” Baldacci said. “We’re in a really difficult economy. This district is poorer than the national average. We have mills that have shut down over the last decade, so there’s a lot of economic hurt going on, so nobody’s winning awards … there’s a lot of hard work that has to happen.” 

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