GORHAM — Republican Bobby Charles outlined his strategy for the governor’s race during a campaign stop Thursday, arguing that the status quo isn’t working in Maine politics and that the state’s next leader will need to bring down taxes while tackling crime and corruption.
Charles, an attorney and former assistant secretary of state from Leeds, won his party’s primary in June with an aggressive social media campaign focused on crime and immigration.
Things have looked less rosy for him in the general election, with Charles trailing Democrat Hannah Pingree in recent polling and fundraising. Several polls, including a late June poll sponsored by Fox News, have shown Pingree with a double-digit lead over Charles.
Charles has been undeterred. At Thursday’s event, held outside a private home with cows grazing in a nearby field, he said he was kicking off his general election campaign and would be starting to “focus intensely on the choices that the average voter has.”
Here are the arguments he made that are likely to come up again before the Nov. 3 election.
The status quo isn’t working in Maine
Charles has worked to tie Pingree to the administration of Gov. Janet Mills, a Democrat for whom Pingree worked for six years as head of the Governor’s Office of Policy Innovation and the Future.
Pingree and independent Rick Bennett, a longtime lawmaker who is also in the race, have years of experience working in Augusta — something Charles argues is not an asset.
“They have made a Maine that was once affordable, safe, accountable and in which people had trust the opposite,” he said Thursday.
Charles says he will bring an outsider’s approach
Charles has never held elected office, though he has held numerous positions in the federal government in Washington, D.C. and continues to run a consulting business. He has painted himself as an Augusta outsider compared to Pingree and Bennett.
“I’m actually not a politician at all,” Charles said. “I guess by definition, since I’m running for something, I’m a politician. But in reality, that’s not my life.”
Charles also shared a little more about his work Thursday, mentioning that he currently serves as the national spokesperson for the Association of Mature American Citizens, which bills itself as the conservative alternative to AARP.
This race isn’t about Donald Trump
Charles won the primary after spending months aligning himself with President Trump.
“I’m going to tell you, if you liked the first 90 days of Trump, if you liked the first two weeks of Trump, you would love the first few weeks of my administration, because we are going to flip this thing on its head,” Charles said shortly after announcing his run for governor last year, according to WGAN radio.
On Thursday, Charles appeared to distance himself from the administration — perhaps previewing an attempt to win over moderate and independent voters.
“I do not know President Trump,” Charles said. “I have never met him. But, I will work with him. I will also stand up against him if he opposes something Maine needs. I am running to serve one group of people: the people of Maine.”
Lowering taxes is a top priority
Charles talked repeatedly about the need to lower taxes — something Pingree and Bennett have also agreed needs to happen. Asked about how he plans to deliver on that promise, Charles said property taxes are primarily being driven up by “unfunded mandates.”
Those are requirements that the state has passed and imposed on towns, but without giving them extra money to do so. If the next governor can roll back some of these mandates, it would bring down costs for municipalities and incentivize them to lower property taxes, he said.
Charles also pledged to eliminate $1 billion from the state budget in his first year, saying that would lower income taxes, although he didn’t offer specifics other than “waste, corruption and fraud.” The two-year state budget is currently around $12 billion.
Corruption and crime are rampant, Charles said
Charles mentioned “corrupt” or “corruption” more than a dozen times in his 20-minute speech. He referenced findings of a recent state audit that flagged deficiencies with the state’s internal controls over contract procurement and payment procedures in one example The state has pushed back on those audit findings.
He also said crime in Maine is severely underreported. As a formal naval intelligence officer and official in the federal government, he said he’s well positioned to address the issue.
“The point is not to cut valuable programs, but to cut and end the waste, the fraud, the incompetence, the indifference and the corruption,” Charles said.