PORTLAND, Maine – The four Democrats running for Maine’s 2nd Congressional District nomination took the debate stage Tuesday night, televised on WMTW, offering voters a clear look at a primary field running sharply to the left on health care, foreign policy, and trade.
With just six weeks until primary day, Jordan Wood, Joe Baldacci, Matt Dunlop, and Paige Loud used the televised debate to argue who would be best positioned to take on former Republican Gov. Paul LePage, who is unopposed for the GOP nomination.
The seat is open after Democratic Congressman Jared Golden announced he would not seek reelection, creating one of the most closely watched congressional contests in the country. Maine’s 2nd District has repeatedly backed President Donald Trump, even while sending Golden, a Democrat, to Washington.
That political split is what makes the race so important, and what made Tuesday night’s debate so revealing.
Rather than moving toward the center in a Trump-friendly district, the Democratic candidates leaned into a familiar progressive agenda: more federal spending, expanded government-run health care, opposition to Trump’s foreign policy, and criticism of tariffs.
The debate quickly turned to rural health care, an issue with real consequences across northern, western, and rural Maine. Moderators noted that rural areas have taken a significant hit in recent years, including in Aroostook County, where two of four hospitals have closed their birthing centers. Rural communities also face limited mental health options and longer ambulance response times.
The candidates largely agreed that Washington should play a bigger role.
Dunlop said the issue is not only access to insurance, but access to facilities where people can receive care, including hospitals, nursing homes, and birthing centers. He blamed insurance companies and corporate hospitals for tilting the system away from patients.
“We need to take that back,” Dunlop said, arguing for a federal program that provides health care directly to citizens.
Loud, a medical social worker in the district, said she is watching the collapse of Maine’s health care system firsthand. She said rural Maine is not only losing facilities but struggling to staff the facilities that remain open.
“We’re losing facilities, but the facilities we do have, we don’t have workers to fill those spots,” Loud said.
She said the federal government should put money toward bringing young workers into the district and argued that universal health care would redirect billions of dollars away from private insurance companies and into states.
Loud also pointed to private equity ownership of hospitals, saying some private buyers purchase medical facilities only to close them, leaving residents without care close to home.
“You shouldn’t have to drive over two hours to give birth, and you shouldn’t have to wait six months to go to the dentist,” she said.
Baldacci said the first step is to repeal what he called the “big, beautifully bad bill,” claiming it has harmed rural hospitals and medical providers. He also called for restoring Affordable Care Act tax credits, creating a public health insurance option to compete with private insurers, and expanding Medicare eligibility to people 55 and older.
“We need to reorder our priorities,” Baldacci said. “No tax cuts to the rich, no wars, and no tariffs.”
Wood went further, calling directly for Medicare for All.
“I believe we must pass Medicare for All, and I will fight every day to get there,” Wood said.
Wood blamed pharmaceutical companies and health insurance companies for the failures of the current system. He said his twin brother was born with asthma and recalled his family paying hundreds of dollars out of pocket for an EpiPen before broader insurance coverage was required.
Wood said the health care system has been broken his entire life and tied the issue directly to money in politics.
“If our members of Congress were truly there to serve and represent us and our needs, then they would pass a system that benefits us, like Medicare for All,” he said.
For all the talk of rural Maine’s collapsing access to care, the candidates offered few market-based reforms or state-level accountability measures. Instead, the answers repeatedly came back to Washington, federal funding, and government-run coverage.
Foreign policy provided another moment of near unanimity.
When asked about President Trump’s handling of the war in Iran, all four candidates rejected the administration’s approach.
Loud said she did not agree with any of the president’s actions in Iran, describing the war as one with “no clear objective, defined end, or honest explanation.”
She said the cost of war is not limited to bombs, but includes decades of veterans’ care, interest on war debt, and lost opportunities for domestic investment.
“We’ve talked all about how we can’t afford school, health care, affordable housing, yet this government always finds money for bombs,” Loud said.
Calling herself an “anti-imperialist,” Loud said she does not believe the United States should engage in acts of war. She argued for a diplomatic reset and accused Trump of making reckless decisions.
Baldacci also condemned the administration’s policy, accusing officials of leading Americans down a “primrose path of disinformation.”
He said he respects the men and women serving in the armed forces, but argued the administration’s policies are unclear, costly, and damaging to the economy.
“They are not achieving any strategic objective,” Baldacci said.
He said Iran’s nuclear capabilities must be contained, but argued that diplomacy, not war, should be the first path.
Wood said he “entirely” opposed the war and compared the conflict to past Middle East wars that he said damaged the country both morally and economically.
He said he became involved in politics while volunteering for Barack Obama’s 2007 presidential campaign because Obama opposed the Iraq War.
“To see us back in a war in the Middle East that looks so similar and is having the same, not just human loss, but economic, devastating economic effect,” Wood said, was unacceptable.
Dunlop said the only part of the administration’s approach he supported was the ceasefire.
He argued that Trump voters could be forgiven for believing the president when he said he would get America out of wars and lower the cost of living, but said Trump had done the opposite.
Dunlop also criticized Congress, saying lawmakers have failed to check the president’s power.
“You can blame President Trump all you want, but Congress has been sitting on his hands and letting him have free rein,” Dunlop said.
Dunlop pointed to his past role on Trump’s 2017 election integrity commission, saying he took the administration to court and prevailed after officials did not like what he had to say. He said he would bring the same willingness to challenge Trump to the Iran issue.
The candidates then turned to tariffs, an issue that has hit Maine businesses, consumers, and industries differently.
Moderators cited polling showing that more Mainers viewed federal tariffs as more bad for Maine than good, while noting the sharp partisan divide on the issue.
Baldacci said tariffs can be appropriate in limited circumstances but rejected broad tariffs.
“These tariffs, no, I don’t support them,” Baldacci said. “They actually cost money. They cost consumers in Maine hundreds of millions of dollars and increased prices.”
He said tariffs are hurting the economy and throwing people out of work, adding that any tariff should be targeted, temporary, and tied to a real plan.
Wood also supported targeted tariffs in some cases, particularly for high-skilled manufacturing, but said Trump’s approach has been corrupt and harmful to consumers.
He said Maine’s 2nd District has been devastated by free trade deals that benefited corporations and wealthy interests while promising that better jobs would eventually replace lost manufacturing work.
“They have not come,” Wood said.
Wood said 30,000 manufacturing jobs have left the district since the 1990s and said voters have reason to be skeptical of free trade. But he argued Trump’s tariffs are not designed to protect American jobs, citing tariffs on products such as coffee from Brazil as an example of costs being passed on to consumers.
Dunlop said targeted tariffs have helped protect Maine lumber mills and paper mills from Canadian dumping, but he warned that exporters do not pay the tariffs, American working families do.
“Working families in America pay those tariffs,” Dunlop said.
He described tariffs as a “19th century policy” that has lost much of its usefulness in the modern economy, though he said they may still have a role in protecting certain industries for limited periods of time.
Asked what industries he might protect, Dunlop mentioned lumber and possibly lobster, while stressing that policymakers should listen to Maine workers and businesses before acting.
Loud agreed that targeted tariffs can be useful, but said Congress should make those decisions, not the president.
“It’s Congress’s job to do it. It’s not the job of one man who has a bad day,” Loud said.
She said Maine’s 2nd District relies heavily on international relationships, especially with Canada. Loud said some loggers and wood industry workers have benefited from tariffs, but she argued broad tariffs raise prices for consumers and distract from domestic needs such as food, housing, and health care.
The debate closed with a lighter lightning round, where candidates were asked about their favorite or most underappreciated Maine parks and whether they had ever voted for someone from the other party.
Wood named Baxter State Park. Dunlop named Reid State Park. Loud pointed to Tidal Falls in Hancock County. Baldacci also selected Baxter.
On cross-party voting, Wood said he once voted for Rick Snyder for governor of Michigan in 2010. Dunlop said he had never voted for a Republican on the ballot. Baldacci said he had voted for former U.S. Sen. Bill Cohen several times, calling the Bangor Republican “a leader” who had done great work for Maine.
While the candidates tried to highlight biography and experience, the debate showed a Democratic field largely united on the major issues: expanded federal health care, opposition to Trump’s foreign policy, skepticism toward broad tariffs, and a belief that Washington should play a larger role in solving the problems facing rural Maine.
That unity could help Democrats avoid a bruising ideological fight in the primary. But it also creates a challenge in the general election.
Maine’s 2nd District is not Portland. It is a sprawling, rural, working-class district that has repeatedly backed Trump and remains skeptical of Washington-driven solutions. The Democratic nominee will have to explain how a platform built around Medicare for All, expanded federal control, and anti-Trump messaging can win over voters who have often rejected national Democratic politics.
LePage, meanwhile, waits on the Republican side without a primary fight.
The June Democratic primary will decide who gets the chance to face him in November, and whether Democrats can hold a seat that may be slipping further into Republican reach.
