• ME-Sen: Republicans have finally landed a candidate to take on Sen. Angus King, an independent who caucuses with the Democrats, but former state GOP chair Demi Kouzounas doesn't exactly bring an imposing profile to the race.
As the Bangor Daily News' Michael Shepherd notes, Kouzounas was ousted as her party's leader last year following a dispiriting midterm for Maine Republicans. Despite prophecies of a red wave nationwide, Democratic Gov. Janet Mills won reelection over her predecessor, the infamous Paul LePage, in a 56-42 landslide—the widest margin in a gubernatorial race in Maine since King's own reelection victory in a three-way contest in 1998.
Republicans also failed to make any gains in the state Senate and actually lost two seats in the state House, leaving both chambers firmly in Democratic hands. In addition, Rep. Jared Golden, one of just a handful of House Democrats who represents a district carried by Donald Trump, defeated the man he'd ousted in 2018, Republican Bruce Poliquin, by a 53-47 margin.
Kouzounas' only prior run for office did not go well, either: She lost a 2012 bid for the state Senate to Democratic incumbent Barry Hobbins 61-39. Kouzounas says that she was encouraged to challenge King by Maine's other senator, Republican Susan Collins, but perhaps unintentionally, she intimated that she was motivated by the necessity of Republicans simply having someone on the ballot.
"To have a senator go unopposed, I think, is terrible," Kouzounas told reporters. Republicans will avoid that fate, but given King's wide margins in his prior two Senate campaigns, they have little reason to expect much more.