ME-02: Republican state Rep. Austin Theriault kicked off his campaign on Monday to take on Democratic Rep. Jared Golden in a northern Maine district that Donald Trump would have won 52-46 in 2020. Theriault's entry gives national Republicans their preferred candidate in one of just five House seats nationwide that favored Trump yet elected a Democrat last year.
This rural district has a large working-class white population and had backed Democrats for decades before it lurched sharply to the right last decade. However, Golden, who is one of the most moderate Democrats in Congress, has proved to be a strong campaigner. Golden first won the previous version of this seat by narrowly ousting GOP Rep. Bruce Poliquin in 2018, and he held onto it in two more heavily contested races, including a 53-47 victory last year in an expensive rematch against Poliquin.
Theriault is a former NASCAR driver who made it to the top level of American racing, the NASCAR Cup Series, in 2019, where he competed five times before an injury led him to become a driver consultant. (His career best in the NASCAR Cup Series was 32nd place.) Last year, he won elected office for the first time when he flipped the seat long held by retiring Democratic state Rep. John Martin, who served as the powerful speaker of the House from 1975 to 1994. Theriault won that open seat 69-31 two years after it favored Trump by a much smaller 54-44 according to Dave’s Redistricting App, a sign he could be a strong general election candidate.
Although Theriault has reportedly consolidated the support of national GOP leaders including House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and his allies, he'll first have to get through a Republican primary. Theriault's GOP rivals include fellow state Rep. Mike Soboleski, who recently launched his own campaign and is running as a steadfast Trump ally, and mortgage broker Robert Cross, an underfunded candidate who unsuccessfully sought the nod for a state Senate seat last year. Hardline state Rep. Laurel Libby also said earlier this month that she hasn't decided if she'll also get in.
Both the primary and general elections will be conducted using instant-runoff voting.