Maine Democrats continue to sound alarm about another Trump presidency

Gov. Janet Mills echoed President Joe Biden’s remarks earlier this week, pledging Thursday to continue to speak out strongly for democracy. 

This comes as Republicans in Maine and across the country are calling for unity after the attempted assasination of former President Donald Trump — which, for them, means an end to doomsday rhetoric about the potential impacts of another Trump presidency.

At a rally in Brunswick, Mills doubled down on this rhetoric, condemning political violence but saying that she’s never felt more strongly about the importance of an election. “The consequences of the decision in front of us this fall are so monumental to our very basic rights and freedoms,” Mills said. 

Mills joined other Maine Democrats — including Maine House Speaker Rachel Talbot Ross (D-Portland), Assistant Senate Majority Leader Mattie Daughtry (D-Brunswick) and Rep. Rebecca Millett (D-Cape Elizabeth) — to announce the launch of Women for Biden-Harris in Maine, a national organizing program aimed at engaging women to reelect Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris. 

While threats to women’s freedoms under a second Trump term was the focus of the rally, speakers also more broadly highlighted what they see as an overarching threat to democracy, including the implications of the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025. 

Maine Democrats drew attention to several aspects of this conservative transition plan, the authors of which Trump has longstanding ties to, including its proposed restrictions on reproductive rights, cuts to federal funding for schools and expansion of presidential authority. 

A continued focus on democracy 

Also echoing Biden’s remarks since the assassination attempt, Talbot Ross said Thursday that she thinks there needs to be a calming of political rhetoric and more engagement in peaceful debate. 

Talbot Ross said she is committed to resolving political differences at the ballot box, noting that American democracy is only as strong as society’s willingness to fight for it. 

“Democracy is not a state. It is an act,” Talbot Ross said, urging attendees to vote for Democrats up and down the ticket in November. “We can’t wait.” 

Attendees of the rally pushed back on GOP calls to turn down the temperature when discussing the stakes of the election. Jane Millett, secretary of the Brunswick Democrats, said fear drove  her to attend the rally. 

“It is doomsday,” Millett said. “It will be doomsday.”

Gretta Wark, who serves as Bath chair for the Sagadahoc Democrats, said she thinks Republicans are right in thinking there needs to be a cooling of rhetoric — but she said the language that needs to be toned down in theirs. 

“They should tone it down,” Wark said. “I don’t respond to their framing. Let’s just say their trail of overblown rhetoric, their votes, their Project 2025 — it speaks for themselves.”

This messaging from Maine Democrats has remained steady since 2024 election campaigning began. 

At the party’s state convention in early June, Maine Democrats sounded the alarm about the freedoms they said would be at risk if Trump is re-elected. During the convention, Mills described the election as a choice between compassion or chaos, and decency or denigration. Democratic U.S. Rep. Chellie Pingree of Maine said the country has to keep Biden in the White House, “otherwise all is lost.”

There was also a particular focus on reproductive rights then, too. In conversation with Maine state representatives, reproductive healthcare providers and patients, U.S. Interior Secretary Deb Haaland spoke at a roundtable event about the threat she saw Trump posing to women’s fundamental freedoms.

Democratic leaders have repeatedly warned voters that even in states like Maine, which currently has some of the least restrictive abortion laws in the country, those rights could be at risk of being superseded by new federal restrictions, should the next president want to override state laws. 

Focus on Project 2025 

Thursday’s rally was held as Republicans from Maine and across the country gathered in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, for the GOP’s national convention. Although Trump has denied any connection to Project 2025, the conservative think tank behind the initiative held an event blocks away from the convention on Tuesday evening, attracting officials and personalities from the party’s most conservative wing.

Democrats in Maine on Thursday hammered on the potential implications of the plan. 

Talbot Ross raised alarm about how Project 2025 envisions expanding presidential power, which the playbook outlines doing by expanding executive authority over the Justice Department and increasing political appointees. 

When discussing what’s at stake for women, Daughtry focused on economic security. 

“Economic security is a women’s issue,” Daughtry said, highlighting the ability to take care of oneself, one’s family, afford childcare, run a small business and more. 

Daughtry raised concern about potential cuts to Social Security and an increase in the retirement age. Project 2025’s operating document does not mention such a plan, though the Heritage Foundation has previously advocated for raising the retirement age. 

Project 2025 does call for reforming pay and benefits for federal employees, describing the government pension system as “much more generous” than private plans.

“Women’s wallets, bodies and uteruses cannot afford another Trump presidency,” Daughtry said.

During the rally, speaker Susan Johnston highlighted concerns about the latter. Johnston got an abortion before the 1973 U.S. Supreme Court decision Roe v. Wade established the right, explaining that she had become suicidal but luckily had the financial means and connections to find a doctor willing to do the then-illegal procedure. Since the high court overturned this precedent in the 2022 Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision, Johnston said, “in many states, the women are in exactly the same position I was.” 

Johnston cautioned that Project 2025 would essentially ban abortion nationwide. The blueprint calls for the Justice Department to enforce the Comstock Act to ban the mailing of abortion pills and rescinding no-cost coverage for birth control. 

Beth French, a teacher in Belfast, said she was concerned about Project 2025’s proposed elimination of the Department of Education, which goes farther than Trump’s own calls for cuts to such federal agencies. 

The message from Maine Democrats remains clear. Mills said, “a second Trump presidency would be even more harmful than the first.”

This story was originally published by the Maine Morning Star