Republican Sen. Rick Bennett announces independent bid for Maine governor

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5 days ago

Sen. Rick Bennett (R-Oxford) addresses the upper chamber on May 7, 2025. (By Emma Davis/ Maine Morning Star)
After decades of public service as a Republican, state Sen. Rick Bennett of Oxford announced on Tuesday that he is running for governor as an independent.
'My candidacy is not an indictment of either party,' Bennett told Maine Morning Star in an interview. 'It's an indictment of the party structure and parties as the solution to solving our problems.'
Calling his independent bid liberating, Bennett said he intends to take his message — one of fiscal responsibility — directly to Maine people and not a subset of the electorate, an approach he sees as a return to Maine's independent tradition.
'I see politics beginning to slide more towards the politics of Washington,' Bennett said, 'and I think we have the opportunity as Maine people to say no to that.'
A lifelong Mainer, Bennett currently serves as Oxford County's senator, a term he plans to finish in 2026 to total 18 combined years of nonconsecutive service in the Maine House of Representatives and Senate, including formerly serving as Senate president. He's vied for higher office before. Running as a Republican, Bennett narrowly lost a bid for Maine's 2nd Congressional district in 1994 and a primary race for U.S. Senate in 2012.
He then went on to chair the Maine Republican Party from 2013 to 2016, casting a vote for President Donald Trump the year of his exit as the party's elector.
But his votes in the Legislature in recent years position him as one of the most bipartisan legislators.
Bennett said he doesn't think he's changed his views much throughout his time in public office. Rather, he thinks the Republican Party, and politics more broadly, has embraced a toxicity that detracts from what he sees as the most pressing issues facing the state: declining quality education, a lack of access to health care particularly in rural areas and affordable housing.
'A lot of the energizing elements in the Republican Party are not what I think respond to the needs of a lot of Maine people,' he said.
Bennett offered a similar critique amid the state budget debate in March.
One of two Republicans to vote for a proposed change package that sought to address the urgent MaineCare deficit, Bennett told Maine Morning Star at the time that he was concerned about the growing demand for fidelity in politics entering Maine.
'There's an element in the Republican Party and the Republican caucuses that is sort of feeding off the chaos and disruptive energies of Donald Trump,' Bennett said, 'and it's really not a good thing to see.'
That supplemental budget ultimately failed after opposition from others in his caucus who refused to back it without structural reform to the program, which is Maine's version of Medicaid. Later in March, Bennett voted against the two-year budget, as well as the addition passed last week. However, he was a rare voice among Republicans in not objecting to the budget being something largely crafted and advanced by Democrats, the majority party.
'We think about these things in partisan terms far too much,' he said in March. 'I object to this budget because it represents a dramatic failing of the Legislature to do its job.'
Reiterating the reform he's long pushed for, Bennett said in an interview ahead of announcing his gubernatorial bid that, if elected, he would push for the Legislature to overhaul its budget process, specifically by building in opportunities to re-evaluate baseline spending, which the budget plan passed in March continued as is.
While ultimately joining Republicans in opposing the budget plans for the next biennium, Bennett is no stranger to bucking his party.
Recently, he joined Democrats in voting against a bill to ban transgender girls from playing girls sports or using girls bathrooms or locker rooms, as well as a slate of other proposals that sought to roll back protections for trans Mainers.
While stating that he was initially unsure how he would vote, Bennett said in a speech on the Senate floor that he shared the proposals with his daughter, Abby, describing her as an accomplished athlete.
'Her response was simple and struck me deeply,' Bennett said. 'She said, 'These bills make me sad.' Her feelings gave me permission to be honest about mine too. I feel sadness that these are before us… I'm saddened by the hardening of silos and the temptation to stigmatize those who are different.'
Bennett also joined Democrats in voting for a bill to restrict local authorities from carrying out federal immigration enforcement, specifically raising concern that municipalities would be on the hook to pay for their local police taking on federal immigration enforcement work, expanding their legal risk with no compensation.
'I, for one, am concerned about the use of Maine resources and the taking of those resources for activities that are governed by whatever party is in the White House,' he said on the Senate floor. 'We need to focus on Maine.'
Bennett has championed the Wabanaki Nations' push for state recognition of their sovereignty, sweeping reform that current Democratic Gov. Janet Mills has opposed. He's also taken interest in laying the groundwork for a four-day work week and eliminating daylight saving time, though such a change would be contingent on federal approval.
Bennett has also advocated for significant campaign finance reform, which, as he put it, is 'unfortunately one of the things that the Republicans and Democrats agree on in Augusta.'
This year, the Legislature rejected a bill Bennett proposed to offer Mainers transparency regarding who spends money in elections by requiring political action committees to disclose their donors over $5,000. The proposal was based on an Arizona law that has already been tested in and held up by the courts.
In 2023, Bennett also chaired the ballot question committee for a referendum Maine voters passed to ban companies from spending money on referendum campaigns if they are partially owned by a foreign government or entity. He also supported the referendum passed last year to place a $5,000 limit on super PACs, which are independent political action committees that can currently raise and spend unlimited funds.
However, both of those reforms were blocked as legal battles play out in the courts.
While Bennett has previously run his campaigns under the Maine Clean Elections Act, which offers full public financing of political campaigns, he said he will not be doing so for his gubernatorial bid, noting the currently inadequate funding for the program and higher qualifying contribution requirements for governor that he sees as difficult to achieve without the backing of a political party.
A bill the Legislature passed, which Bennett supported, could also change how Mainers cast their votes in the gubernatorial race in 2026. It currently awaits the governor's approval.
LD 1666 would expand ranked-choice voting, which allows voters to rank candidates by preference, for general and special elections for governor and state legislators. RCV is currently used for federal elections and gubernatorial and state-level primary elections in Maine.
'I wasn't wild about ranked-choice voting but the voters of Maine said twice that they want it,' Bennett said, referring to Mainers initially voting the system into law and later expanding it. 'So, I have been supporting it and trying to make it work.'
Though, Bennett declined to comment on how he thinks the expansion of this voting method would impact the governor's race.
The Republicans currently running for governor are state Sen. James Libby of Cumberland, Robert Charles of Bangor, who worked in the federal government during the George W. Bush administration, Navy veteran Steven Christopher Sheppard, also of Bangor, Kenneth Capron of Portland, David John Jones of Falmouth, Owen McCarthy of Gorham,
Democratic contenders include Secretary of State Shenna Bellows, former Senate President Troy Jackson and the children of two of Maine's current members of Congress, Hannah Pingree, also the former head of Gov. Janet Mills' Office of Policy Innovation and the Future, and Angus King III.
There is also one other unenrolled candidate so far, Alexander Kenneth Murchison of Dover Foxcroft.
The Republicans currently running for governor are state Sen. James Libby of Cumberland, Robert Charles of Bangor, who worked in the federal government during the George W. Bush administration, Navy veteran Steven Christopher Sheppard, also of Bangor, Kenneth Capron of Portland, David John Jones of Falmouth, and Owen McCarthy of Gorham.
Democratic contenders include Secretary of State Shenna Bellows, former Senate President Troy Jackson and the children of two of Maine's current members of Congress, Hannah Pingree, also the former head of Gov. Janet Mills' Office of Policy Innovation and the Future, and Angus King III.
There is also one other unenrolled candidate for governor so far, Alexander Kenneth Murchison of Dover-Foxcroft.
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