Tuesday’s election may be the Democrats’ best shot in decades of defeating GOP Sen. Susan Collins of Maine. But Republicans are eyeing their own rare pickup opportunity in the state’s 2nd Congressional District, where Democratic Rep. Jared Golden’s retirement has opened a door.

Whoever wins — Democrat Matt Dunlap, the state auditor, or Republican Paul LePage, a former governor — would represent a gigantic swath of land that covers roughly 90% of the state, encompassing all but Portland, its northern suburbs and the Southern Maine Coast.

One of the more rural districts in the country, it has proved politically fickle, swapping Democratic and Republican representatives in recent decades.

Barack Obama won it twice; Donald Trump, three times.

“It is incredibly large and vast and underpopulated in many areas, so it makes campaigns very difficult,” said Bev Uhlenhake, a former chair of the Maine Democratic Party.

“Like most of Maine, it is pretty homogenous, but even more so than the state as a whole. It is still very white. It is still very rural. It is still a very small-town in nature,” Uhlenhake said.

The seat is being vacated by retiring Democrat Jared Golden, a-four-term lawmaker who observers say cut the ideal profile for a Democrat to represent the district as it swung toward Trump.

“He was completely genuine,” said Dan Shea, a professor of political science at Colby College, in Waterville, who said Golden’s style was on brand with Maine.

“He would never put on airs,” Shea said. “He drove around with rolled-up sleeves in flannel shirts in his pickup truck.”

Though Golden holds some progressive policy positions — he co-sponsored Medicare for All — he appealed to voters in his district with more conservative stances on certain issues, including guns: For years, he broke with his party by opposing some gun control measures proposed by Democrats.

He shocked those in Maine, though, by reversing that stance after a deadly mass shooting in his hometown of Lewiston in 2023.

As Democrats seek to pick off House districts across the country, Golden’s seat is one they risk losing.

Their hopes lie with Dunlap, who emerged from the primary this summer as a candidate who appears more progressive than Golden ever was.

“I think he definitely comes from the much more left side of the Democratic spectrum than Jared Golden. Now, I think he’s going to activate a lot of anti-Trump Voters, but how he’ll fare with the more moderate Republicans, which you really need in that district, is an open question,” Shea told MS NOW.

Dunlap, though, has broken from his party on at least one of the issues Golden once did, saying he opposes a federal assault weapons ban. And a Maine-based gun safety group declined in August to endorse Dunlap, who once led the Sportsman’s Alliance of Maine.

LePage, for his part, earned the endorsement of the National Rifle Association in August.

“I will defend the Second Amendment to the extreme, I do not believe that government is the answer, I think the Constitution gives us the ability to own and carry guns, and I think we need to protect that, and I will fight against anyone trying to ban guns in the United States,” LePage said then.

LePage has faced criticism this cycle for living part time in Florida in the years since he left the governor’s mansion in 2019.

“Yes, I’m a snowbird,” he said, when pressed on the issue at a recent debate. “At my age I don’t like snow anymore. I don’t ski anymore. I’ve got knee problems, so I don’t ski and I don’t play hockey anymore. So yes, in the winter months, we go to Florida.”

As governor, LePage was known as a brash conservative who was “popular with the right wing of the Republican Party in Maine,” said Shea.

“LePage matched Donald Trump’s style to a T,” he said.

Republicans believe LePage’s bona fides with the conservative base could help boost Collins, who risks losing the support of moderate voters south of Portland she once relied on as she tries to fend off Democrat Troy Jackson.

“The best tool to turn out the rural vote will be the combination of Susan Collins and Paul LePage on the ballot together,” said Lauren LePage, the candidate’s daughter who is a Republican strategist in Maine.

“LePage excites the base, and Collins has delivered for rural Maine over and over again.”

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From MS Now.