Trump ally and former Maine Republican Gov. Paul Lepage aims for a political comeback

LEWISTON, MAINE – EXCLUSIVE – Former two-term Gov. Paul LePage of Maine says President Donald Trump is a major reason why he’s coming out of political retirement at age 76 – and he’s eyeing a campaign comeback.

“I never, ever had any aspirations to go to Washington until now,” LePage said this week in his first national interview after launching his bid for the House in Maine’s Second Congressional District, which is a top swing seat the GOP aims to flip in the 2026 midterm elections.

The contest will likely be one of the most closely watched House races in the country next year as the Republicans aim to hold their fragile majority in the chamber.

“Donald Trump, I think, is doing what is necessary in addressing the debt this country is facing. And I think that’s a big, big thing for me,” LePage said as he was interviewed in the Maine city where he was born and raised.

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LePage highlighted, “I have a friend in the White House right now. I know President Trump. I think I can have an audience of President Trump. I know several of his secretaries very well. And so I think this is a good time. It’s a good time for me to go help.”

LePage – the brash and blunt politician who won over blue-collar workers struggling with economic woes, which helped the Republican businessman win election and re-election in the blue-leaning state – was one of the first major GOP elected officials to endorse Trump when the president first ran for the White House nearly a decade ago.

“I was Donald Trump before Donald Trump became popular,” LePage joked at the time, in a line that’s since become famous.

The conservative governor, who grabbed national attention with controversial comments made during his tenure, briefly moved with his wife, Ann, to Florida after finishing his second term in 2019.

“I am done with politics. I have done my eight years. It’s time for somebody else,” he said at the time.

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But LePage re-established residency in Maine five years ago and challenged his successor as governor, Democratic Gov. Janet Mills, in the 2022 election.

LePage ended up losing his bid for a third term by 13 points to Mills, but he did carry the 2nd Congressional District in that race.

Moderate Democratic Rep. Jared Golden, a U.S. Marine veteran who deployed to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and who often bucks his own party in Congress, has held the seat since first winning it in 2018.

But Golden won re-election by a razor-thin margin last year in the district, which is the second-most rural in the U.S. and the largest east of the Mississippi River.

And Trump, who carried the district in the 2016, 2020 and 2024 presidential elections by nine, seven and 10 points, earned an electoral vote each time, as Maine and Nebraska, are the only two states in the union to allocate their electoral votes partially by congressional district.

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Golden, in a statement after LePage announced his candidacy, said, “I thought Paul was doing his best work in retirement.”

But the 42-year-old Golden has yet to announce whether he’ll seek re-election next year or instead run for either the state’s Senate seat or the open governor’s office.

In his Fox News interview, LePage reiterated that the nation’s debt is a top motivation for him to return to politics. As of May 8, the national debt was $36,212,886,111,158.26, according to Fox News’ National Debt Tracker. 

“It’s the spending and the debt that this country has, and I’m worried about my grandchildren, great-grandchildren. And I think we have a president now that’s really willing to tackle it, and I’m willing to help,” he said.

But LePage added that “the other thing that is really big is what’s happening in our country with the woke environment. I think I want to be there to help clean that up if we can. Having boys play in girls’ sports is really sad.”

He also highlighted his Tuesday meeting—part of a three-day swing through the congressional district—with Maine student Cassidy Carlisle, whom he described as “the courageous young woman fighting unfair male competition in girls’ sports.”

Maine’s 2nd Congressional District shares a long border with Canada.

When asked if he’ll be spotlighting border security and immigration as major issues in his campaign, Lepage said, “Big time.”

But the controversial tariffs the president placed on nations across the globe last month has strained relations with Canada.

“I’m all for the tariffs,” LePage said. “The tariffs will fix our international trade and lower taxes.”

LePage acknowledged: “Is it going to hurt in the short term? Yeah, it’s going to hurt a little bit in the short term, but I think it’s necessary.”

And he predicted that “the tariffs are going to be a short-term problem. I think they’re going to settle out.”

LePage spoke with Fox News at Lewiston’s Franco Center, a performing arts center and historic site of Franco-American culture located in a former Gothic church built in 1907 for French Canadian immigrants in Maine, which is located alongside the city’s historical mills and canals. 

The former governor, who survived a troubling and often brutal upbringing, gave Fox News a tour of the many dwellings within blocks of the Franco Center, where he spent his childhood.

The eldest son of 18 children, LePage grew up speaking French in an impoverished home with an alcoholic and abusive father who was a mill worker.

At age 11, he ran away from home after his father beat him and broke his nose. He lived on the streets of Lewiston and often crashed on friends’ couches for a couple of years before earning a living shining shoes, washing dishes at a restaurant, and haling boxes for a local truck driver. 

“I had a very, very, rough upbringing as a youth. We were in welfare, we were in poverty,” he said.

LePage, speaking in the church where he was baptized and sought refuge during his family troubles, told Fox News, “It feels good coming in this building. This was a special building. A couple of nuns and priests were really helpful in my upbringing.”

He went on to graduate from high school, and with financial help from friends, attended and graduated from college.

He later enjoyed success as a businessman, including greatly expanding Marden’s Surplus and Salvage, a Maine-based discount store chain.

Years later, he ventured into politics, winning election to the Waterville city council and later serving as the city’s mayor before winning statewide office in 2010.

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The former governor says his rough childhood has influenced his political life in a way that not many other politicians can understand.

And he lamented, “Unfortunately, the mentality in the current society is not to help people get out of poverty, but it’s to keep them in poverty.”

“I want to help get them out of poverty,” he said. “I think there are so many programs that we can institute that will elevate people in poverty, rather than keep them.”