Lewiston, Maine – Exclusive – Maine’s former second term Paul Lepage says he’s focused on the campaign comeback, the main reason why President Donald Trump escaped political retirement at the age of 76.
“I’ve never wanted to go to Washington before,” LePage said this week in his first national interview after he bids in the House of Representatives in Maine’s second Congressional district, which GOP aims to flip in the 2026 medium-term elections.
The contest will be one of the country’s most closely monitored house races next year as Republicans aim to retain their fragile majority at the Chamber of Commerce.
“I think Donald Trump is doing what it takes to deal with the debts this country is facing, and I think that’s a big, big thing for me.”
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Former Republican Paul Lepage, who runs for the home in Maine’s Second Congressional District in 2026, speaks in his first interview with Fox News Digital, held in Lewiston, Maine on May 7, 2025, after releasing a candid statement. (Fox News – Paulsteinhauser)
“I have a friend right now in the White House. I know President Trump. I think I can have an audience for President Trump. I know some of his secretaries well,” LePage said.
Lepage – The rude and dull politician who beat the blue-collar workers who helped Republican businessmen win elections and reelections in a blue-minded state was one of the first major GOP-elected officials to support Trump when the president first ran towards the White House almost a decade ago.
“Before Donald Trump became popular, I was Donald Trump,” Lepage joked to the line that became famous afterwards.
The conservative governor attracted public attention for his controversial comments during his tenure, and after completing his second term in 2019 he moved easily to Florida with his wife Anne.
“I’ve finished politics. I’ve spent eight years. It’s time for someone else,” he said at the time.
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However, Lepage reestablished Maine’s residency five years ago, and challenged him to succeed Democrat Janet Mills in the 2022 election.
LePage lost 13 points to Mills in his third term bid, but he carried the Second Congressional District in that race.
Jared Golden, a moderate Democrat who was a US Marine veteran who unfolded in wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and often defeated his own party in Congress, has held his seat since his first victory in 2018.
At a press conference at the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday, March 6, 2024, Rep. D-Maine has represented Maine’s Second Congressional District since winning his first seat in 2018 (Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc.).
However, Golden won reelection last year in the US’s second-most rural district and the largest eastern part of the Mississippi River, with last year’s razor thin margin.
Trump, who carried presidential elections in 2016, 2020 and 2024 to the district in 2024, won votes every time as Maine and Nebraska are the only two states that partially allocate votes by the Congressional district.
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Golden said in a statement after Lepage announced his candidacy that he “thought Paul was doing his best job in retirement.”
However, Golden, 42, has yet to announce whether he will seek reelection next year or run for the state Senate seat or the public governor’s office instead.
In an interview with Fox News, LePage reiterated that the country’s debt was the main motivation for him to return to politics. As of May 8, national debt was $36,212,86,111,158.26, according to Fox News’ National Debt Tracker.
“It’s the spending and debt that this country has, and I’m worried about my grandson’s great grandson. And I think we have a president who is really happy to work on it right now. I’m happy to help,” he said.
But Lepage said, “One other thing really big is what’s happening in our country in a woken environment. If possible, I’d like to be there to help clean it up. It’s really sad to play boys in girls’ sports.”
He also highlighted Tuesday’s meeting (part of a three-day swing through the Congressional District) and Maine student Cassidy Carlisle as “a brave young woman fighting unfair male competition in girls’ sports.”
Maine’s Second Congressional District shares a long border with Canada.
LePage said it was “big time” when asked if he would spotlight border security and immigration as a major issue in the campaign.
But the controversial tariffs the president placed on countries around the world last month have strained relations with Canada.
Former Maine Governor Paul Lepage, who is running a Republican parliamentary campaign in 2026, will speak to voters on May 7, 2025 at gun shops and indoor shooting ranges in Maine Poland. (Fox News – Paulsteinhauser)
“I’m all about customs,” LePage said. “Taxes correct the decline in international trade and taxes.”
lepage said, “Does it hurt in the short term? Yes, it hurts a little in the short term, but I think it’s necessary.”
He predicted, “Taxes will be a short-term issue. They will settle.”
LePage spoke with Fox News at the Performing Arts Center in a former Gothic church built in Maine for French Canadian immigrants in 1907 and at the Franco Centre in Lewiston, a historic location for Franco-American culture.
May 7, 2026, former Maine Governor Paul Lepage is holding a 2026 Republican campaign touring the Franco Arts Center, the Franco American Culture Performing Arts Center, and the historic location of Franco Center on May 7, 2025, in a former Gothic church in Lewisson. (Fox News – Paulsteinhauser)
The former governor, who survived the nasty and often brutal upbringing, gave Fox News a tour of many housing complexes within the Franco Center block.
Lepage, the eldest of 18 children, grew up speaking French in a poor home with his abusive, alcoholic father, a factory worker.
At 11, he fled the house after his father beat him and broke his nose. He lives on the streets of Lewiston, and after crashing on a friend’s couch for several years, he kept alive sparkling shoes, washed dishes in restaurants, and earned boxes for local truck drivers.
“I was very, very roughly raised as a young man. We were in welfare. We were in poverty,” he said.
Former Maine Governor Paul Lepage refers to the location of his childhood building in Lewiston, Maine on May 7, 2025 (Fox News – Paul Steinhauser)
Lepage spoke at a church where he was baptized and asked for evacuation during his family troubles, and told Fox News, “It feels good to come to this building. It was a special building. A few nuns and priests were really helpful in my upbringing.”
He graduated from high school and attended college and graduated with financial support from friends.
He later became a successful businessman, with a major expansion of the surplus and Salvage of Marden, a discount store chain based in Maine.
Years later, he challenged politics, won elections to Waterville City Council and served as mayor before acquiring a statewide office in 2010.
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The former governor says his rough childhood influenced his political life in ways many other politicians couldn’t understand.
And he lamented, “Unfortunately, the way society thinks today is not to help people get out of poverty, but to maintain poverty.”
“I want to help them get out of poverty,” he said. “I think there are so many programs that can raise people in poverty rather than keep them there.”
Paul Steinhauser is a political reporter based in swing state in New Hampshire. He covers campaign trails from coast to coast. ”
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