Second District Congressman Jared Golden (D-ME) is taking friendly fire from a national group that commits itself to resisting the Trump agenda and fighting for progressive politics, which has for months been assailing the maverick Democrat for not holding town hall meetings.
In addition to waging war with President Donald Trump and Republicans generally, the so-called Indivisible is also calling out Democrats who do not meet its purity test, their Maine activities show. Rep. Golden, who supports tariffs and has bucked his party’s leadership regularly over his three terms in Congress, is the sort of Democrat the group believes needs scolding.
Recently, Indivisible Maine took aim at an event Golden was attending at Colby College in Waterville.
“They make clear that they want to purge the Democratic Party of anyone who doesn’t meet their definition of what it means to be a Democrat,” Golden said last week. “My perspective is, they call themselves Indivisible, but they are literally dedicated to division within the Democratic Party itself.”
On social media, scores of angry Democrats fired back.
“So he’s mad at his own base, the ones who knocked doors to get him INTO Congress? And he’s so mad that he is afraid to answer to the same MAINE people who knocked those doors? WOW,” former state representative Diane Russell of Portland commented on Facebook.
In March, Indivisible hosted an “empty chair” event in Bangor to highlight the Golden’s failure to hold town hall meetings, like the more progressive First District Congresswoman Chellie Pingree (D-ME) has done twice in the comfortably liberal Southern Maine municipalities of Portland and Westbrook.
Neither of Maine’s U.S. senators has recently held a town hall meeting.
But singling out Golden must strike the congressman as a particularly ungrateful move given his past support for allied efforts such as the Maine Peoples’ Alliance (MPA). Last year, Golden and Pingree worked to help MPA get a half million dollars in federal grant money, ostensibly for “environmental justice.” Coincidentally, in the 2024 election, MPA deployed canvassers in support of both Democrat members of Congress.
On Thursday, MPA issued an early endorsement for Maine’s 2026 gubernatorial race in laying claim to the campaign of Secretary of State Shenna Bellows (D-Hallowell) in a surprise move given that Angus King III joined the field of prospective Democrats earlier in the week, and many speculate Golden will too.
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“She’s been a champion of women, children, people with low incomes, older people, and workers. She’s stood up to bullies, defended the rights of marginalized people, and shown us what good government looks like,” MPA said of Bellows in the endorsement.
Both Indivisible and the MPA are funded by the shadowy left-wing Arabella Advisors.
[RELATED: Shadowy Left-Wing Group Spends Big on Maine Politics]
The Democrats’ intramural fighting is not limited to the still relatively youthful Golden. Last month, Democratic National Committee Co-Chair David Hogg pledged to spend $20 million funding primary campaigns against “old” Democrat members of Congress. This led veteran Democrat strategist (and no spring chicken himself) James Carville to call Hogg a “contemptible little twerp.”
Sadly for Golden, no Maine Democrats have yet stood up for him as vociferously.
This lack of love or loyalty may be part of what drove him to flirt with No Labels, an alternative political party, last month.
