AUGUSTA, Maine — More than five weeks of political turmoil, including the replacement of President Joe Biden on the Democratic ticket, is putting presidential politics at the center of the election in Maine’s swing 2nd Congressional District.

Third-term U.S. Rep. Jared Golden, a centrist Democrat, led off the first ad of his race by saying his party’s president was unfit for a second term. His Republican opponent, state Rep. Austin Theriault, has tied himself to former President Donald Trump and seized almost daily on Golden’s refusal to say whether or not he will vote for Vice President Kamala Harris.

It isn’t just the banter between the candidates. Trump won one of Maine’s four electors in both the 2016 and 2020 races by taking the 2nd District. Even though Golden narrowly outpolled the former president four years ago, the Republican playbook for flipping the seat relies on a lift from Trump and Theriault being able to harness the district’s conservative lean.

“Golden’s a hard one to knock out,” a national Republican strategist who was granted anonymity to candidly discuss the race said. “You know, he’s like that white whale we’ve been trying to take out for years.”

The national parties are still trying to figure out how the switch from Biden to Harris will affect races down the ballot. Trump led Biden throughout the campaign, but she is narrowing his edge in national polls and has overtaken him in some swing states. She led Trump by 8 percentage points in a recent statewide Maine poll from the University of New Hampshire.

After Biden’s poor debate performance against Trump, Golden wrote a Bangor Daily News op-ed saying the former president would win the election. He has ruled out voting for Trump, but he told Axios after the effective switch to Harris that he was not committed to voting for her, saying he was waiting to see how she handles economic issues, immigration and crime.

In a post on X, formerly known as Twitter, Austin Theriault said Golden was behaving like a “slippery Washington politician” for that. Golden issued a statement on Friday saying both Theriault and the media have “an obsession with Donald Trump and Kamala Harris.” But the congressman avoided answering a specific question about whether he will eventually say how he will vote in the November election.

“I’m the Congressman for Maine’s Second District and I’ll answer any question about the work that I do for my constituents,” Golden said.

Two Maine Republicans have also avoided questions about their presidential choices in recent years. While U.S. Sen. Susan Collins pledged to not vote for Trump in 2016 and 2024, she refused to say how she voted when she shared the ballot with the former president in 2020. Former U.S. Rep. Bruce Poliquin of the 2nd District did the same thing in 2016.

Golden voted against Biden policies more than any other House Democrat last year, and his centrism proved difficult for Poliquin to handle in a 2022 rematch. The two had similar views on immigration and gun rights, leading the National Rifle Association and other similar groups to stay out of the race.

Guns will be a wedge this time after Golden reversed himself to back a ban on so-called assault weapons after the October mass shooting in Lewiston.

Theriault and his Republican allies have also leaned hard on immigration to brand Golden as a “flip-flopper” on that and other issues. One of the challenger’s main citations is Golden’s vote against House Republicans’ signature 2023 border bill.

Golden adviser Bobby Reynolds said in a recent WVOM interview that his boss opposed it for eroding protections for children taken across the border but noted the congressman’s history of voting for border security funding.

Theriault won his June primary with the endorsement of Trump. While he has tied himself to the former president, his public statements have repeated that he wants “more balance and less extremism” in Washington. In a statement, campaign manager Shawn Roderick said Theriault “has a completely different personal style and approach” than Trump.

“In Congress, he’ll stand up to the Republicans who want to cut Social Security and Medicare, oppose any national ban on abortion, and won’t allow [the federal fishing regulator] to mess with our lobstermen,” Roderick said.

Golden likely starts with a narrow edge. Decision Desk HQ, the Bangor Daily News’ national election results partner, gives him a 67 percent chance of winning. The congressman is also running ads while Theriault is not. That will change soon, and both candidates will have ample support from party groups.

Before Biden dropped out, Trump had a 92 percent chance at winning Maine. The presidential campaigns have not focused much here yet, though Trump visited the district twice in 2020 and a group supporting Harris bought ads in the Bangor market last week, according to the monitoring firm AdImpact.

Theriault looks primed to focus on the top of the ticket while defining his image, and Golden appears inclined to make this more of a local race.

“Regardless of who the president is, regardless of who’s offering up legislation, if it’s good for his constituents, he’s going to support it,” Reynolds said of Golden in the radio interview. “If it’s bad for his constituents, he’s going to oppose it.”

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