On this week’s episode of the Pine Tree Pulse Podcast, we touch on three “D’s”: the gubernatorial and CD2 debates, the $1B budget deficit, and the “drive-by” in which a man nearly hit and killed Maine Wire reporter Joe Sokol with his vehicle while Joe was reporting on a story in Bangor.
We start with the debates. Republican Bobby Charles, Democrat Hannah Pingree, and independent Rick Bennett faced off in the governor’s race, sparring over taxes, housing, state spending, and energy costs. Then, in the Second Congressional District, former Gov. Paul LePage and Democrat Matt Dunlap clashed over health care, gas taxes, government fraud.
Whoever wins the race for governor will also inherit a difficult fiscal picture. Maine’s latest four-year forecast projects a roughly $1.09 billion General Fund gap for the 2028–29 biennium under current-law assumptions, plus another $256.7 million gap in the Highway Fund.
We also turn to the U.S. Senate race after Democratic nominee Troy Jackson apologized for comments linking some Jewish Mainers’ reluctance to call the war in Gaza a genocide to their Jewish identity and the Holocaust.
Finally, we discuss the disturbing video of Maine Wire reporter Joe Sokol narrowly avoiding being struck by a vehicle while reporting outside a Bangor treatment center.
All this and more on this week’s Pine Tree Pulse.
Thanks for listening!