
Maine's Political Pulse
Maine's Political Pulse taps into the expertise of our top political reporters, Steve Mistler and Mal Leary.
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Defeating Susan Collins is Graham Platner’s primary goal, but he and his campaign also signaled that they’re gearing up for a potential fight against power brokers in the Democratic National Committee.
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The 2026 gubernatorial election is 16 months away, yet Republican hopeful Bobby Charles has already managed to break through the mostly routine campaign rollouts by the rest of the ever-growing field of candidates.
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The Maine Legislature wrapped up this year’s session on Wednesday night. Here's what they got done and still have left to do.
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This week we’re gonna catch up on the latest from the State House where the Legislature is racing toward the end of the session. There’s a lot going on. But we’re going to focus on a few highlights, starting with a conflict between Democrats and Republicans over a "red flag" bill that will appear as a ballot measure in November.
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Nearly one year after President Donald Trump’s supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol in the hopes of stopping certification of the 2020 election, the Maine House of Representatives debated a resolution commemorating the assault on Congress that ultimately led to the conviction of more than 1,270 rioters.
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Some members of Congress, including most of Maine's delegation, are increasingly uneasy with President Donald Trump's tariffs — but efforts to curtail his power are likely going nowhere.
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Welcome to April and a political news cycle that never stops. This week we’re going to focus on a few developments with the goal of providing a little clarity and context that isn’t always achievable when news breaks and deadlines loom.
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Trump has said repeatedly he wants Canada to become the 51st state. It's a statement sometimes laughed off in the U.S., but viewed as deadly serious in Canada.
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Maine’s new, three-day waiting period on gun purchases passed the Legislature by the slimmest possible margin last year and narrowly averted a veto from Democratic Gov. Janet Mills. Now, gun rights advocates think the law could become the vehicle to erase waiting period laws in Maine and roughly a dozen other states.
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Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has continued to push the long debunked claim that childhood vaccines cause autism. He has also argued that the COVID-19 vaccine was part of an elite plot to prolong the pandemic and shun other unproven or debunked remedies.
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Democrats’ response this week to President Donald Trump’s attempt to freeze all federal grants and loans already approved by Congress was a rare moment of swift, unified and urgent condemnation.
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The tax and fee changes that Gov. Janet Mills put forward last week in her budget only add up to about $150 million in a two-year state spending plan that tops $11.6 billion. But new taxes and fees are always controversial, even when they are narrowly “targeted,” as Mills argues in this case.