Republicans finally got some good news out of the 2026 midterms, and it came from Maine.
The Associated Press on Thursday called the race in Maine’s 2nd Congressional District for former Republican Gov. Paul LePage, who defeated Democratic State Auditor Matt Dunlap. It is one of the few seats the GOP managed to flip during a historic Democratic wave.
LePage, 78, will succeed Democratic Rep. Jared Golden, who chose to retire rather than seek re-election. Dunlap has already conceded the race, which came down to a narrow margin.
According to the AP, LePage’s victory was the only House seat Republicans flipped without redistricting playing a role. The GOP’s other two pickups, Texas’ 32nd Congressional District and Tennessee’s 9th Congressional District, were made possible by new maps that made those districts far more conservative.
LePage, a combative two-term governor who once called himself “Donald Trump before Donald Trump,” built his political brand in Maine as a blunt-talking conservative long before Trump entered politics. His win in the sprawling, largely rural northern Maine district gives Republicans a rare pickup in a region where Golden, a moderate Democrat, had held on for several terms.
The victory stands out against an otherwise grim night for the GOP. Democrats made massive gains on Nov. 3, not only in both chambers of Congress but also in state legislatures and governors’ races across the country.
Democrats will hold a 55-44 edge in the Senate, with one race still to be called, and at least 255 seats in the House.
Republicans have pointed to the war with Iran and rising prices as key factors that drove voters toward Democrats this year. Vice President JD Vance blamed the war directly, while other Republicans, including Sen. John Kennedy of Louisiana, argued the party failed to address voters’ economic pain.
For LePage, the result marks a political comeback. He left the governor’s office in 2019 and lost a 2022 bid to reclaim it from Democratic Gov. Janet Mills. He then turned his sights on Congress, and this time it paid off.
He will take his seat in January as part of a shrunken Republican minority in the House.
