Travis Mills Floats Run for Maine Governor

Travis Mills, a retired United States Army staff sergeant, motivational speaker and author, known for his advocacy for wounded veterans, is floating the idea of running for governor of Maine.

“I might have to start an exploratory campaign for Governor,” Mills mused in a Feb. 12 Facebook post.

Although there has been some private speculation in political circles that Mills would run as an independent, unaffiliated with either party, his comments suggested that his politics are more in line with the current Republican majority in Congress and the man in the White House.

“It’s just surprising how you can lose the House, Senate and White House and then somehow believe everyone should do the opposite of what the majority of the United States voted for!” he said in his post.

“It’s comments I get on my post about [Defense Secretary] Pete Hegseth being a champion that make me think I should definitely run for Governor and eventually United States Senate,” Mills floated in January.

Mills is — by Maine standards — a celebrity. He has served as the charismatic founder of the Travis Mills Foundation, a retreat in Rome that allows wounded U.S. military veterans and their families an all-expenses paid opportunity to relax, receive treatment, and “recalibrate” to civilian life.

Helping veterans recover from physical and mental injuries sustained during combat tours is task Mills is well suited for.

After enlisting in the Army in 2006, Mills was assigned to the 82nd Airborne Division.

On April 10, 2012, during his third deployment to Afghanistan, Mills was critically injured by an improvised explosive device. He survived but lost portions of all four limbs, making him one of only a few surviving quadruple amputees from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. His recovery at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center was arduous, but he adapted, learning to walk with prosthetics and regaining independence.

Following his recovery, Mills became a motivational speaker, sharing his story of perseverance. Blending self-deprecating stand up comedy with a compelling personal story, Mills’ appeal as a public speaker and an advocate for veterans is irresistible.

He founded the Travis Mills Foundation, which provides programs for injured veterans and their families, in 2013, and wrote a New York Times best-selling memoir, Tough as They Come, in 2015. In the same year, Mills released a documentary about his adventure from recovery to advocate.

Although this list of names floated as potential Republican candidates for governor presently includes more than a dozen people, multiple political insiders agreed that Mills’ formal entry into the race would re-stack the deck.

Although Mills has generally kept relationships open to political leaders in both parties, his social media posts suggest he’s far more in line President Donald Trump and Vice President J.D. Vance than Democrat congressional leaders.

Mills has praised Scott Jennings, the lone conservative commentator on CNN, as well as Trump’s new press secretary, Karoline Leavitt.

He also hasn’t been shy about weighing in on some of the sharpest cultural divides in Maine.

“If you’re mad that boys can’t compete in girls sports you are also the problem,” Mills said in a Feb. 5 post.

“There is no world that we live in where my daughter should compete against naturally born males,” he said. “If this message offends anybody trust me, I truly don’t care.”