Second District GOP candidates alike in defense of guns, bigotry, and Trump

Three Republicans have declared their candidacy for the chance to unseat Rep. Jared Golden in Maine’s 2ndCongressional District: former state Senator Eric Brakey, former state Representative Dale Crafts, and former Paul LePage spokesperson Adrienne Bennett. Despite the widening primary field, however, Republican voters are likely to have difficulty in discerning between their choices. All three candidates are members of the National Rifle Association, they all oppose reproductive rights, and they are unanimous in their continued support of President Donald Trump.

Eric Brakey

Of the three candidates, Brakey has been on the campaign trail the longest. He declared in September and has been working since to repair his reputation following a dismal showing in his 2018 bid for Angus King’s senate seat. Brakey was perhaps best known in the 2018 race for a series of inflammatory, xenophobic comments in which he parroted many of the white nationalist conspiracy theories being propagated by Trump, alt-right activists, and neo-Nazis.

Brakey wrote in one tweet that Democrats were attempting “mass importation of new voters to transform our political culture.” In another tweet he blamed King for trying to “import our population” from Latin America. A third tweet falsely claimed that “100 ISIS terrorists were arrested in the caravan while en-route to the U.S.” (When the latter claim was shown to be fake news circulating among the right, Brakey deleted the tweet and blamed it on a staffer.)

Brakey lost the Senate race to King 35 to 54 percent, with Democrat Zak Ringelstein garnering 10 percent. Despite borrowing from Trump’s anti-immigrant playbook, and despite the fact that Maine’s Second District favored Trump over former Secretary of State and Democratic presidential nominee Hilary Clinton by 10 points, Brakey proved unable to amass a majority in a single county within that district. He earned razor-thin pluralities in just two counties.

Since declaring his intentions for 2020, Brakey appears to be backing down from what former Auburn City Councilor Adam Lee called his “shameful xenophobia.” Instead, Brakey is now touting his record opposing gun safety, including a bill that he sponsored in 2015 to repeal Maine’s requirement for a permit to carry a concealed gun. Brakey describes the bill as “one of the biggest accomplishments” from his two terms in the senate. Ignoring the clear, longstanding evidence that stronger gun safety protections result in fewer gun deaths, Brakey continues claiming that “gun control simply doesn’t work.” The NRA spent over $22,000 on Brakey’s failed senate race.

To differentiate himself from other Republicans, Brakey points to his libertarian roots. Yet as a politician, he appears to be practicing GOP orthodoxy: earning multiple zero percent ratings from Planned Parenthood and the AFL-CIO, and declaring his continued allegiance to Trump. Brakey, an early supporter of Kentucky Senator Rand Paul, initially refused to say whom he voted for in the 2016 presidential election. Two years later, during his 2018 senate campaign, he penned an open letter to Trump, inviting him north and writing, “Maine NEEDS a Trump rally!” Last month, Brakey tweeted, “As Maine’s Congressman, I will stand with President Trump to drain the swamp and end these partisan witch-hunts.”

Dale Crafts

Dale Crafts served in Maine’s House of Representatives from 2008 to 2016, and over the course of his four terms he made key votes against same-sex marriage, minimum wage increases, same-day voter registration, and Medicaid expansion. He co-sponsored Brakey’s bill to repeal Maine’s requirement to carry a concealed gun, and voted against legislation that would have imposed penalties for the unauthorized sale of private firearms. He also supported a bill that would have restricted transgender Mainers from using restrooms of the sex with which they identify.

Crafts is not shy about taking unpopular positions. In a Maine State Legislative Political Courage Test, he stated that abortion should be illegal in all cases—including incest and rape—and he declared his opposition to same-sex marriage, views which are shared by less than 30 percent of Mainers, according to a 2014 Pew Research Center survey. Crafts also stated that K-12 funding should be decreased, as well as state funding for healthcare. He does not believe that Maine should limit greenhouse gases linked to global warming.

Crafts will also have to explain to 2nd District voters why he sided with big out-of-state corporations over Maine workers, as well as the political donations he apparently earned as payment. In 2012, he sponsored a bill to weaken labor protections at the infamous egg farms owned by Austin “Jack” DeCoster, who had incurred a decades-long list of labor, health, and environmental violations. Shortly after Crafts’ bill made its way through the legislature, DeCoster contributed to Crafts’ re-election campaign. Crafts also received a contribution from Moark LLC, the out-of-state subsidiary that purchased DeCoster’s holdings. The AFL-CIO awarded Crafts multiple zero percent scores between 2008 and 2016, as did Planned Parenthood.

“We want to partner with Donald Trump,” Crafts said at his recent campaign launch, where he also announced that he has the endorsement of former governor Paul LePage. Crafts said he was “extremely happy” to have LePage’s support. “I am proud to have him by my side.”

Adrienne Bennett

As LePage’s former spokesperson, Bennett had also been courting the former governor’s approval. When she first decided to join the race, she said that LePage was the first call that she made. “He is a mentor of mine,” she said on WVOM, “someone I’ve learned a ton from. I asked for his advice.”

Working as the former governor’s mouthpiece from 2010 to 2017, Bennett was regularly placed in the awkward position of defending his incendiary, often racist statements. In one instance that received national notoriety, LePage blamed people of color for Maine’s drug epidemic, claiming that he’d amassed a three-ring binder of information on drug traffickers, and that over 90 percent of them were Black or Hispanic.

When the binder was made public, the vast majority of offenders were white Mainers, but Bennett doubled down on the governor’s claim, posting on Facebook that media outlets were not reporting the facts. “When CBS13 looked into only traffickers from out-of-state, one appeared white, while 31 looked black or Hispanic, about 97 percent,” she wrote.

Maine Republican consultant Lance Dutson tweeted in response: “Adrienne Bennett clarifies that state employees are in fact running a fullblown racist operation out of the Gov’s office.”

In another instance, when the LePage administration attempted to kick thousands of Mainers off the state’s Medicaid program, Bennett maintained that the move wasn’t as cruel as people made it out to be. “We’re not taking away something from people,” she said. “We are empowering them to support themselves.”

In addition to her years in Augusta, Bennett has worked in real estate and as a banking executive. She describes herself as “an early Trump supporter” and “a pro-life conservative.”