Politics
Maine Democrat drops Senate bid for battleground House run
Maine Democrat Jordan Wood is dropping out of the Senate race to instead run for the newly vacant 2nd congressional district, he said in an interview this week, teeing up a fight to maintain Democratic control of the battleground seat.
Wood had pressed ahead in Maine’s Senate race, even as the primary rapidly evolved into a two-person race between Graham Platner and Gov. Janet Mills. But after Rep. Jared Golden’s (D-Maine) unexpected retirement from Congress, Wood said the high stakes race in northern Maine poses a more dire contest for Democrats to prove they can maintain their power.
“‘What do we do in this moment of crisis for our country and our state in democracy?’ That is what called me into the Senate race,” Wood said in an interview. “With Jared not running, it leaves open one of the most competitive House races in the entire country, and so I’m stepping up to take that on, because I believe we must.”
Republicans have clamored to regain control of the increasingly red district — which President Donald Trump won by 10 points in 2024 — and celebrated Golden’s withdrawal as a slam dunk for the GOP.
But Wood says he thinks Democrats are poised to maintain their control, pointing to the party’s wins in last week’s elections where voters rejected a proposed voter identification law and green lighted a red flag gun law.
“What I hear from voters across the state is an anger and a frustration at a broken politics, and less directed at a single person but a political establishment,” he said. “Voters are really looking for candidates that are putting forward a vision of the future that they can believe in and that is addressing the biggest issues that they face in life.”
Wood declined to endorse in the Senate race following his withdrawal but said he’d “support whoever the Democratic nominee is.”
Wood — who said he currently lives about 20 miles outside of the district but grew up in the area — said he and his husband are in the process of moving within the district’s boundaries. He noted that he held town halls in all 11 counties of the 2nd District during his Senate run and heard directly from many would-be constituents.
He argued his campaign reached voters not by focusing on Trump but instead speaking to the “failure” of representatives across the aisle in addressing affordability and the cost of living — issues he says are “not all just Donald Trump’s fault.”
Wood will bring fundraising heft to the race. He’s raked in more than $3 million since launching his Senate campaign in late April — roughly half of which came in the last quarter — though that includes a $250,000 loan, according to his filings with the Federal Election Commission. He started the final three months of the year with $920,000 in his campaign coffers, which he can now roll over to his House campaign.
On the Republican side, two-term former Gov. Paul LePage had raised roughly $916,000 through the end of September and started the final three months of the year with $716,000 in cash on hand.
Wood joins former Golden primary challenger Matt Dunlap, the state auditor, who pledged to stay in the race after Golden’s exit.
Woods’ entrance is unlikely to end the DCCC’s ongoing search for a candidate, according to two people granted anonymity to discuss private conversations.
Wood said that he had “been in communication” with the DCCC and “let them know our plans” but declined to provide details on the conversations.
Another potential entrant into the race is current gubernatorial candidate and former state Senate President Troy Jackson, who last week left the door open to a run.
“I’m really flattered by everyone reaching out and I get why,” Jackson said in a statement. “I’ve won multiple times in a district that voted for Trump by talking directly to rural working class voters from across the political spectrum about how to make Maine more affordable for them.”
One other name to watch: Penobscot Nation Chief Kirk Francis, who was once mulling a Senate bid. A Francis ally told the Bangor Daily News last week that he was considering a run in ME-02.
A version of this article first appeared in Blue Light News Pro’s Morning Score. Want to receive the newsletter every weekday? Subscribe to Blue Light News Pro.You’ll also receive daily policy news and other intelligence you need to act on the day’s biggest stories.
No matter the result on Wednesday night, the roughly 60,000 Bosnian Americans who call St. Louis home — reportedly the largest population of Bosnians outside Bosnia and Herzegovina — will have something to celebrate. Many, however, are unapologetically cheering for their homeland when it takes on the country they now call home.
“They are like dressing up in the jerseys, singing the anthem,” said Ibro Tucakovic, a Bosnian immigrant who arrived in the U.S. in 1998 and became the first Bosnian immigrant to seek elected office in Missouri. “Looking at my daughter, when we won against Qatar, she was crying. And so basically they, they can see the happiness in their parents’ eyes, because it means so much to us. So the kids are basically just going nuts over it.”
Mirhad Hasanovic, a Bosnian immigrant who came to the U.S. in July 2001 and is now a legislative staffer running to represent parts of St. Louis’s South County in the Missouri statehouse, said it was “unfortunate” that his two favorite countries are playing against one another so early on in the tournament.
“For Bosnians, this is huge,” he said. “We’re a very small country, so just to be able to be at the World Cup and compete is an achievement in itself. “Kids grow up at the age of three or four, they start playing, they start watching, they start going to all the leagues, so the excitement level is out the roof.”
For refugees whose memories of Bosnia revolve around war and genocide, its first-ever appearance in the knockout rounds has become a way to reconnect with the country they fled.
“It’s not very often that you get, like, really great news from Bosnia,” said Adna Karamehic-Oates, director of the Center for Bosnian Studies at Saint Louis University. “People want good stories that come out of Bosnia, and that’s why they’re so happy.”
As a rule, JD Vance seems to go out of his way to say whatever Donald Trump wants him to say, but from time to time, contradictions emerge between the president and the vice president.
Take the recently passed housing bill, for example, which arrived at the White House earlier this week.
As part of an interview Tuesday night with Fox News’ Laura Ingraham, the Ohio Republican said, “Frankly, Laura, I would love it if Democrats were willing — you know, not that they will agree with Republicans all the time — but if they were willing to work with us on lowering housing prices, on lowering gas prices, on actually making the lives of American citizens better. You know, we could have some real bipartisan compromise. That’s not what they’re talking about.”
I realize the vice president must be very busy, but it really isn’t that difficult to keep up with the basics of current events. In this case, when Vance said Democrats are unwilling to work with Republicans on priorities such as “lowering housing prices,” he turned reality on its head. It was literally last week when Democrats offered unanimous support for a bipartisan bill to address housing prices — legislation that members such as Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts helped to write.
Democrats recognized that doing so would offer the GOP some election-season bragging rights, but Democrats did it anyway because they have prioritized governing and “actually making the lives of American citizens better” over partisan considerations.
But Vance didn’t just contradict reality; he also contradicted his boss.
Just one day before the vice president brazenly misled a national television audience, Trump was asked about the pending housing bill. “It’s very bipartisan; that means the Democrats like it,” the president saidwhile acknowledging that he hasn’t yet decided whether to sign it.
In other words, when Vance said policymakers “could have some real bipartisan compromise,” he seemed indifferent to the fact that we’ve already had some real bipartisan compromise — a detail that even Trump was willing to acknowledge a day earlier.
Whether the vice president will suffer for publicly contradicting the president remains to be seen.
Steve Benen is a producer for “The Rachel Maddow Show,” the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He’s also the bestselling author of “Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans’ War on the Recent Past.”
BELGRADE, Serbia — The nearly four-year Bosnian war in the 1990s set off a massive wave of displacement, with a third of Bosnia and Herzegovina’s pre-war population permanently leaving the country as refugees.
Team captain Edin Džeko, a 40-year-old striker who left his native Sarajevo soon after the war, has recalled playing soccer in the lulls between the daily barrage of sniper fire that defined the siege of the Bosnian capital and says he could never have imagined becoming a world-class player after watching the football pitches in his neighborhood reduced to “fields of scorched earth.”
Bosnia’s squad reflects that postwar diaspora. Left back Sead Kolašinac was born in Karlsruhe, Germany, in 1993 to a family that left after Bosnia descended into war. Right back Amar Dedić was born in Austria after his parents left northern Bosnia during the war, and midfielder Benjamin Tahirović in Sweden to refugees from besieged Sarajevo.
And then there is the so-called Milwaukee Messi: young forward Esmir Bajraktarević, who was born in a Wisconsin to parents born in the eastern town that gave its name to the Srebrenica genocide.
- ‘It’s not very often that you get, like, really great news from Bosnia’
- Vance contradicts Trump about bipartisan cooperation on housing bill
- Bosnia’s starting lineup is also a map of its war
- Belgium’s Congolese heartland sees victory in defeat
- Capitol agenda: House floor freezes over
- The left won big in NYC. Now it has to survive a redistricting effort.
- Tom Kean Jr. kept his depression a secret. Colleagues are questioning that decision.
- House votes to disclose which members settled sexual misconduct allegations with taxpayer funds
- Shouting match erupts between Lawler and Raskin at immigration hearing
- GOP split on path forward after birthright citizenship blow
-
Politics1 year agoFormer ‘Squad’ members launching ‘Bowman and Bush’ YouTube show
-
The Dictatorship1 year agoLuigi Mangione acknowledges public support in first official statement since arrest
-
Politics1 year agoFormer Kentucky AG Daniel Cameron launches Senate bid
-
Uncategorized2 years ago
Bob Good to step down as Freedom Caucus chair this week
-
The Josh Fourrier Show2 years agoDOOMSDAY: Trump won, now what?
-
The Dictatorship1 year agoPete Hegseth’s tenure at the Pentagon goes from bad to worse
-
Politics1 year agoBlue Light News’s Editorial Director Ryan Hutchins speaks at Blue Light News’s 2025 Governors Summit
-
The Dictatorship10 months agoMike Johnson sums up the GOP’s arrogant position on military occupation with two words