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To: Interested Parties
From: Riya Vashi
Date: June 23, 2026
Subject: The Case Against Paul LePage
In one of the most competitive seats in the country, Mainers in the Second District have a stark choice this November: Matt Dunlap, a lifelong Mainer who has dedicated his career to standing up for working families, or Paul LePage, who has already proven that he is a disaster for everyday Mainers – he can’t be trusted to protect Medicare, Medicaid, or Social Security and will continue the policies that have made their lives unaffordable.
Paul LePage has already proudly tied himself to Washington Republicans’ tax scam ripping health care away from tens of thousands of Mainers and raising costs across the district in order to deliver even more tax breaks for billionaires. Over his eight years as governor, LePage vetoed Medicaid expansion six times, oversaw record-setting opioid overdose deaths, decimated Maine’s public health system, was repeatedly ordered by Maine courts to follow the laws he’d sworn to execute, called Social Security and Medicare “welfare” programs, and delivered nearly $900 million in tax breaks to Maine’s wealthiest — driving up local property taxes on working families to pay for it. Now, after bolting to Florida and spending years in the Sunshine State cashing his Maine taxpayer-funded pension, LePage is back, asking for a promotion to Congress.
Matt Dunlap was born and raised on a farm near Bar Harbor and has spent his entire career serving Maine. Matt worked multiple jobs to put himself through school, eventually building a career in public service that has taken him from leading the Sportsman’s Alliance of Maine to two terms as Maine’s Secretary of State. In his current role as State Auditor, Matt has worked to root out government waste, fraud, and inefficiency and, as a former labor union member, he’s spent his career standing up for working Mainers. Matt is running for Congress to take on the powerful interests that have rigged the economy against working-class Mainers: fighting to lower the cost of living, protect Medicare and Social Security, defend a woman’s right to choose, and stand up to corporate greed and defend the rule of law.
Mainers haven’t forgotten what Paul LePage stands for: tax breaks for the wealthy, devastating cuts to the health care families count on, and outright contempt for the rule of law. Now, LePage is asking Mainers to ignore years of his attacks on health care and Mainers’ hard earned benefits – not to mention the fact that he abandoned Maine – and send him to Washington. The choice this November is between a lifelong Mainer who has spent decades serving the state and standing up to powerful interests — and a Florida resident who has already promised to do even more damage to the very state he abandoned.
LePage’s Career-Long War on Maine’s Health Care Continues With His Embrace of D.C. Republicans’ Tax Scam
Paul LePage has gone all-in on the Republican Tax Scam that’s led to the largest cut to Medicaid in history to fund massive tax breaks for billionaires — calling it “the greatest thing that can happen to the Maine people” and saying he would have voted for it himself. That bill is now stripping health care from over 25,000 ME-02 residents, kicking 34,000 Mainers off Medicaid this year and next, and putting rural hospitals in Calais, Presque Isle, Caribou, and Ellsworth at risk of closing. The bill also guts $27 million in annual revenue from Northern Light Health, the system that operates nine hospitals and dozens of primary care locations across Maine, and threatens meals for 50,000 households in Maine’s Second District.
LePage’s enthusiastic support for slashing health care in Maine isn’t a new position — it’s the continuation of a career-long pattern. As governor, LePage vetoed Medicaid expansion six times, blocking coverage for 80,000 Mainers, and famously declared he would go to jail before he’d let Maine expand Medicaid. He was sued for ignoring the will of Maine voters who overwhelmingly approved expansion at the ballot, and Maine courts forced him to implement the law he refused to follow. LePage also vetoed legislation protecting Mainers with pre-existing conditions, slashed the number of public health nurses in half during his tenure, and has repeatedly attacked Mainers’ reproductive freedoms for more than a decade — stating point blank that “we should not have abortion.”
LePage’s most damning health care failure came as the opioid epidemic raged across Maine. As overdose deaths set records repeatedly under his watch, LePage blocked lifesaving access to the overdose reversal drug naloxone again and again, even as other Republicans embraced expanding access, forcing the Maine Legislature to repeatedly override his vetoes. Editorial boards across Maine highlighted how LePage put lives in danger. By the end of LePage’s tenure, Maine was one of the worst states in the country for opioid overdose deaths, with the Portland Press Herald editorial board reporting that LePage “undermined” Maine’s response to a crisis that killed hundreds of his own constituents.
Unlike LePage, Matt Dunlap has spent his career fighting for Maine working families, not slashing the services they depend on. Matt has heard from Mainers across the Second District worried about the rising cost of health care, and he knows it’s past time to stop letting insurance companies and pharmaceutical conglomerates decide whether Maine families are able to afford the care they need. In Congress, Matt will fight to expand affordable health care, putting people’s health and financial well-being ahead of private profits for insurance executives and protecting Social Security. While LePage spent his governorship attacking Mainers’ health care, Matt Dunlap is running to protect every single Mainers’ right to it.
More Money For LePage’s Ultra-Wealthy Friends, Less Money For Working Mainers
LePage’s full embrace of Republicans’ Tax Scam isn’t just an attack on health care — it’s an attack on the wallets of every working family in Maine. The disastrous LePage-backed bill delivers massive tax cuts to billionaires and corporations at the direct expense of Mainers, who are footing the bill through cuts to Medicaid, SNAP, and the programs they rely on. LePage’s support for the legislation is no surprise: as governor, he delivered nearly $900 million in tax breaks to Maine’s wealthiest, all while driving up local property taxes for working families. Mainers paid an average of $30 million more per year in local property taxes during LePage’s tenure to backfill the revenue he funneled to the rich, and his repeated attacks on revenue-sharing forced Maine towns to raise more than $1 billion in property taxes to fund schools the state was supposed to fund. LePage also repeatedly pushed to reform the tax system entirely — a move that would have been a giveaway to wealthy Mainers while gutting funding for Maine’s schools, roads, and essential services.
LePage’s contempt for working Maine families wasn’t subtle. When Maine voters passed a minimum wage increase that raised incomes for 181,000 Mainers — including more than one in three working seniors — LePage was so outraged he called for jailing the supporters of the wage increase. LePage even oversaw the decline of Maine’s legacy paper mill industry, refusing to sign bipartisan legislation to protect the industry and opposing subsidies for Maine’s struggling biomass producers as five mills shut down on his watch, killing hundreds of Maine jobs.
LePage has also never hidden his disdain for Maine’s working class seniors. He referred to Social Security and Medicare, earned benefits Mainers have paid into their entire careers, as “welfare” programs. He withheld $15 million in funding Mainers voted for to build affordable housing for Maine seniors for years, refused federal funding for senior Alzheimer’s and dementia programs, and let food insecurity among Maine seniors climb significantly. LePage offered “no leadership on Maine’s aging crisis,” “creating unnecessary suffering for today’s seniors and guaranteeing more of the same for tomorrow’s.”
Meanwhile, Matt Dunlap has spent his career standing with Maine working families. A former labor union member who is 100% pro-labor, Matt will be a steadfast pro-union voice in Congress — fighting for the PRO Act, defending fair wages and safe working conditions, and protecting every Mainer’s right to organize. He’ll fight to lower the cost of living by pushing for universal childcare, expanding affordable housing, and repealing the reckless tariffs that have driven up costs for Maine families. In Congress, Matt will strengthen Social Security, expand affordable health care, and make billionaires and big corporations finally pay their fair share — instead of forcing working Mainers to bankroll yet another round of tax breaks for the wealthy.
LePage Sold Out Maine Families to Corporate Special Interests — and Then Abandoned Them for Florida
Paul LePage’s disqualifying record reveals a politician who has spent his career serving corporate special interests and himself — not Maine families. As governor, LePage was so beholden to corporate lobbyists that the Portland Phoenix reported he copy-pasted passages from lobbyists’ memos into Maine policy, moving to weaken Maine’s wage and tip-sharing protections on behalf of restaurant industry lawyers, and pushing to roll back the state’s child labor laws at the request of special interests in Augusta. He stacked his administration with corporate insiders who had their own financial interests, appointing a hospital lobbyist to head Maine’s Department of Health and Human Services and a land developer to lead Maine’s environmental protection agency. The Portland Press Herald wrote that under LePage, big business “comes first” and that he governed “like a friend of the corporations.” His administration was even punished in 2016 after the hospital lobbyist he appointed misspent over $13 million in federal welfare funds on programs that didn’t help low-income families.
Mere months after leaving office, LePage was paid $7,500 to lobby for the controversial CMP corridor — the same transmission project he had secretly traveled to Spain to discuss with CMP’s owners as governor, on a trip his administration refused to disclose until reporters caught his “secret taxpayer-funded trips.” LePage’s “Canada First” approach to trade as governor was so brazen that Maine lumber producers themselves accused him of putting Canadian companies ahead of Mainers when he lobbied to exempt New Brunswick and Quebec from softwood lumber tariffs that were finally giving Maine’s industry a fighting chance.
LePage moved to Florida the day Janet Mills was sworn in to replace him, registering to vote in Florida the exact same day. His stated reason: he didn’t want to pay Maine taxes — the same taxes that fund Maine schools, roads, and the services Mainers depend on. Yet, LePage still wanted to cash in his $26,000-per-year Maine taxpayer-funded pension while in Florida, claimed the Florida homestead exemption, and only re-established Maine residency when it was time to run for office again. LePage didn’t wait until he was out of state to rip off Maine taxpayers. As governor, LePage and his wife had previously been caught defrauding the state of Maine by claiming a homestead property tax exemption on their Maine home while simultaneously claiming the same exemption on their property in Florida. LePage ran up tens of thousands of dollars in taxpayer expenses on luxury properties as governor, and twice proposed more than doubling his own salary while in office.
A lifelong Mainer who grew up on a Bar Harbor farm and has spent his career serving the state, Matt Dunlap has spent his career rooting out corruption, not enabling it. As State Auditor, Matt has worked to expose government waste and prevent fraud — the exact opposite of LePage’s pattern of letting lobbyists write Maine policy. In Congress, Matt will keep doing what he’s always done: putting Maine families ahead of corporate special interests and authoritarian power grabs.
WHAT THEY’RE SAYING
Bangor Daily News: Paul LePage embraces the biggest parts of Donald Trump’s ‘Big Beautiful Bill’ [Bangor Daily News, 7/8/25]
Maine Beacon: Report: LePage’s tax cuts favoring the wealthy costing Maine $864 million in revenue [Maine Beacon, 9/13/18]
Bangor Daily News: Rural hospitals, prescription aid for seniors suffer cuts in LePage’s proposed budget [Bangor Daily News, 1/11/13]
Maine Beacon: Despite rising death toll, LePage vetoes opioid treatment bills [Maine Beacon, 7/9/18]
Bangor Daily News: LePage’s obstruction continues as thousands of Mainers await access to health insurance [Bangor Daily News, 9/8/18]
Portland Press Herald: Paul LePage is using an Augusta apartment for his political comeback [Portland Press Herald, 3/26/26]
New York Times: A vote expanded Medicaid in Maine. The governor is ignoring it. [New York Times, 7/24/18]
PATH TO VICTORY
Maine’s Second District has been one of the most competitive seats in the country for a decade — and every cycle, Democrats keep delivering a win. In a working-class, rural district like ME-02, the path to victory runs through candidates who reflect the district they’re running in — and Matt Dunlap is exactly that kind of leader. A lifelong Mainer raised on a Bar Harbor farm who has won statewide office twice as Secretary of State and now serves as State Auditor, Matt has spent his career proving he can win the working-class, ticket-splitting voters who decide ME-02.
A former labor union member with deep ties to Maine’s sportsmen, working families, and senior communities, Matt enters the general election with a record of delivering for Maine across the political spectrum and the kind of independent, Maine-first profile that wins in ME-02. LePage’s history of attacking the programs Maine seniors rely on lands especially hard in a district where seniors are projected to make up over 40 percent of the November electorate.
Mainers know exactly what Paul LePage stands for — and they’re ready to reject him and send Matt Dunlap to Congress instead. In an environment where Mainers are increasingly fed up with the Big Ugly Bill stripping their health care and raising their costs, and with a Democratic candidate in Matt Dunlap uniquely positioned to win back the working families LePage abandoned, there is a clear path to keep this seat in Democratic hands in November.
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