Editor’s note: Reporter Matt Junker worked in the office of U.S. Senator Angus King from 2013 to early 2017 and was an intern on his 2012 Senate campaign.
Prominent political families have long held sway in Maine. But the number of famous last names on the ballot Tuesday is unusual.
It’s not just one, two or even three candidates who are members of an existing or would-be political dynasty. There are four: Angus King III, the son of a current U.S. senator and former governor. Hannah Pingree, the daughter of a current U.S. representative. Jonathan Bush, the nephew of one U.S. president and cousin of another. And Joe Baldacci, the brother of a former governor and U.S. representative.
“It’s unprecedented in my time following Maine politics,” said University of Maine political science professor Mark Brewer. “In the last 50 years, we haven’t seen anything like this. And maybe not before that either.”
Brewer cautioned that there might be similar examples in the mid-19th century or earlier that he’s not aware of.
Currently, half of Maine’s four-person congressional delegation has a child running for higher office back home in the state. Angus King III, the son of independent Sen. Angus King, and Hannah Pingree, the daughter of Democratic 1st Congressional District Rep. Chellie Pingree, are both vying for the Democratic nomination for governor.
Jonathan Bush, a member of the national political dynasty that produced two U.S. presidents and two governors in Florida and Texas, is looking to win the Republican nomination for governor.
And in Maine’s 2nd Congressional District, another familiar last name is in the mix to replace outgoing Democratic Rep. Jared Golden. State Sen. Joe Baldacci, whose older brother held the same seat decades ago before becoming governor, has picked up national party support as he tries to emerge from a crowded Democratic primary.
The Maine Monitor reached out to the Baldacci, Bush, King and Pingree campaigns in an attempt to speak with the candidates about their family connections and how they have sought to distinguish themselves in their races. King and Pingree both participated in interviews, while the Baldacci and Bush campaigns did not respond to multiple attempts to connect with their candidates.
Hailing from a prominent political family can bring a beneficial level of name recognition, but it also can be a drag on electoral prospects in an era of heightened anti-establishment sentiment. There are a host of candidates around the country looking to expand upon political dynasties with last names such as Kennedy, and the cluster from notable Maine families on Tuesday’s ballot could provide a referendum on the staying power of a famous political name in today’s climate.
“I think the famous name is always to a certain extent a double-edged sword regardless of the situation or the climate we find ourselves in,” said Brewer, the UMaine political scientist.
Another Angus King
Of the four candidates who hail from famous political families, Angus King III stands out because he and his father share both a first and last name.
This could potentially give him a bump in the primary, not solely due to name recognition but because some voters might even confuse him with his father, who had a 57 percent approval rating as of last year.
“I think that there are some people who right now are not really cognizant of the fact that we’re not talking about Senator King,” Brewer, the UMaine professor, said in May about the governor’s race. “We’re talking about Senator King’s son.”
The younger King acknowledged that some confusion is possible, but he said he is running on his own resume.
“I’ve spent the last year campaigning, meeting a heck of a lot of people,” King said. “I’ve worked as hard as I possibly can to make people know who they’re voting for and that they’re voting for me.”
Any confusion, he said, was “not a part of the campaign strategy in the slightest.”
King said he is sometimes asked whether it’s a political advantage to have his name, and he compared it to being Wayne Gretzky’s kid as a hockey player. This comparison has been a common one for King on the campaign trail.
“The answer is ‘Of course,’ but not in the way you’d think,” the younger King said. “When you step out on the ice, you still have to shoot the puck, you still have to skate, you still have to work in the corners, and the name on the back of your jersey doesn’t help you there.”
Still, his father has weighed in to try to help his effort in the Democratic primary. Sen. King
reminded independent voters in a campaign video for his son that Maine’s semi-open primary system now allows for unenrolled voters to vote in one of the party primaries.
Angus King III does feel that he benefited from his father’s example growing up.
“I am biased, but I think I grew up in the home of one of America’s great public servants,” he said.
Yet he said the connection to his father has been a complication in some cases rather than a benefit. He cited his time working in the White House during President Bill Clinton’s administration, while his father was the independent governor of Maine.
“Actually, it’s sometimes sort of a burden. You actually work extra hard to work around that,” he said. “Interestingly, earlier in my life when I worked in the White House, my dad was an independent. And there were plenty of Democrats who were skeptical of that.”
While King the senator serves as an independent and King the candidate for governor is running as a Democrat, the father and son share several similarities — including that both spent time as alternative energy entrepreneurs before their campaigns for governor.
‘I’m running as Hannah’
Like Angus King III, Hannah Pingree grew up learning from one of Maine’s prominent political leaders. She recalled knocking on around 1,000 doors as a 14-year-old during her mother’s first campaign win as a Maine Senate candidate in the early 1990s.
“I’ve watched and learned a lot from my mom from a young age,” Pingree said. “I saw her as the Senate Majority Leader taking on the pharmaceutical industry and winning and, you know, doing this big stuff.”
But unlike the younger King, who has spent decades in business, Pingree has already held political office herself.
“I think in many ways, I’ve learned a lot from my mother about how to engage and how to get good things done, but I think I have almost a 25-year track record in public service myself,” Pingree said.
She noted that, when she was elected speaker of the Maine House of Representatives in 2008, the vote was unanimous “because they thought I could be a good leader, that I could get good things done for them.”
While Pingree’s mother has turned up in the primary campaign to support her daughter, including in a Mother’s Day-themed video highlighting the importance of electing mothers to office, the former Maine speaker of the House and former Mills administration official has emphasized her own experience in public life. She also pointed to how her campaign materials have emphasized her first name.
“I’m running as Hannah. I think people recognize me for who I am and what I’ve done for Maine people for almost 25 years,” Pingree said. “And you know, I think that people seem to respect that.”
Pingree said that people haven’t been asking her about her mom that often during this election, but, given that it’s a Democratic primary, she does hear the occasional compliment.
“People say to me, ‘Oh my God, I love your mom,’” Pingree said. “She’s fighting for us down in Washington. She’s standing up to Donald Trump.”
The younger Pingree said she does sometimes hear from Mainers who say that, if she’s similar to her mother, then they’ll like her. But at the same time, Pingree prefers to have her experience stand on its own.
Brewer sees this dynamic potentially cutting both ways.
“There are some folks who might look at her mother and say, ‘Well, her mother’s pretty liberal.
I don’t know if we want someone that liberal as a statewide candidate’ — failing to recognize that maybe Hannah’s record and her mother’s are different.”
Democratic Gov. Janet Mills has endorsed Pingree in the primary. Pingree spent several years working on Mills’ administration as the director of the Office of Policy Innovation and the Future.
“I feel like people, in my own race for governor, they know me for the work that I’ve done as speaker of the House, working for Governor Mills,” Pingree said. “And so it’s more of a kind of a complementary thing versus like, I’m running on my mom’s coattails.”
A Bush and a Baldacci
The durability of two other political dynasties could be tested in the Republican primary for governor and the Democratic primary for Maine’s 2nd Congressional District.
Jonathan Bush, though a member of one of the country’s most recognizable political families, has styled himself as an outsider in the crowded GOP primary. Bush, a former health care technology entrepreneur, has never held political office himself, but his family tree is full of former presidents and governors.
His uncle, George H.W. Bush, and cousin, George W. Bush, both served as president. George W. Bush was also governor of Texas before his time in the White House. And another cousin, Jeb Bush, was governor of Florida.
“I know what you’re thinking, not another Bush,” the current candidate said in one of his campaign ads. He has stressed his experience as a job creator and recently told Fox News that he’s “not getting a lot of advice from the Bush cousins.”
Bush has said that it’s his concern about the direction of Maine and its economy, not family politics, that has driven his run for governor.
On the other side of the aisle in Maine’s 2nd District, Joe Baldacci is looking to be the next member of his family elected to a major political office. A current state senator and former Bangor city councilor, Baldacci is in the running for his brother’s old congressional seat.
John Baldacci represented the 2nd District in Congress for eight years in the late 1990s and early 2000s before serving two terms as Maine’s governor.
But as with the Bush, King and Pingree names on the ballot this election, it remains to be seen whether that name recognition ends up being an electoral boost or impediment amid a sea of anti-establishment sentiment — which has crossed party lines.
“It’s more prominent right now within the Democratic Party, I think, but that’s just because in many ways the Republican anti-establishment wing has already won, right?” Brewer said. “I mean, that’s why we have Trump to a certain extent.”
And even without a prominent anti-establishment feeling, a famous last name can have both benefits and drawbacks, Brewer added.
“Look at Jonathan Bush. If this were back in, say, the 1990s, early 2000 aughts, maybe that name helps him within Republican Party circles in Maine,” Brewer said. “In the Trump MAGA Republican era, the last name of Bush does not help you in Republican circles, right? And so I think Bush is finding that out.”
Bush has been frequently polling toward the top of the Republican primary field but behind apparent frontrunner Bobby Charles.
Baldacci, meanwhile, has seen an influx of support from national Democrats. But as with all of these candidates, Brewer cautioned that his name recognition might not necessarily correlate with popularity at this point in time.
On the one hand, Baldacci comes from “a long-standing, well-known political family in Maine within Democratic Party circles,” he said. “That being said, there are, you know, some folks who still look back at his brother’s two terms as governor and say, ‘That wasn’t maybe the best thing we ever did.’”
Late in his second term as governor, John Baldacci’s approval rating sunk below 35 percent, according to reporting from the Associated Press at the time.
Voters decide what matters
It is not uncommon for politically connected people to seek higher political office. Mills is the daughter of a former state lawmaker and U.S. attorney. Both of Republican Sen. Susan Collins’ parents served as mayor of their city of Caribou; her father spent time in the Maine Legislature; and her uncle was a justice on the Maine Supreme Judicial Court.
Still, the number of major candidates from prominent political families is far beyond the norm this primary season.
While Brewer said the number of famous names this Maine election cycle is striking, he also emphasized that voters’ assessments of the candidates will not be limited to their names.
“They’re all individuals that stand on their own. They’ve all got years of accomplishments on their own, separate from their famous family members,” Brewer said. “That’s going to be something voters are going to have to sort out.”
