Stephanie Hawke is seeking a rematch in House District 89 this fall. The former two-term state representative lost to Holly Stover, D-Boothbay, 2,559-2,447. During the Feb. 28 Republican Caucus, Hawke announced she would seek another term. Hawke owns Hawke Motors in Boothbay Harbor and is a Community School District committee member. She told Republicans from Boothbay, Boothbay Harbor and Southport, who held their biannual caucus at the American Legion Hall, she is concerned the wrong values are winning in Augusta. She described the state legislature as making a hard and fast move toward socialism. “A lot of bad things are going on in Augusta. Just look at the proposal for a 40 cent per gallon tax on fuel. This would have a disastrous impact on my tow truck business, and on my husband’s, who is a lobsterman,” she said. 

Hawke also told the 27 attendees she blamed herself for the 2018 defeat. In the final months, Hawke’s brother battled a long illness before dying. So Hawke didn’t campaign much during the campaign’s final month. “It came down to politics or my brother, and I chose my brother,’ she said. 

Hawke’s announcement was good news for caucus attendee Mark Jones. He was sporting a red hat with gold lettering reading “LePage 2020.” Jones is excited Hawke and LePage are still pushing a conservative agenda. “She did a good job representating us. She served on the Marine Resources Committee which is important for Midcoast Maine. Her husband is a lobsterman and we need representation on the board from someone like her than someone from Aroostook County who doesn’t know anything about fishing,” he said. 

In 2018, Democrats captured the Blaine House with Janet Mills and expanded their margins in the House of Representatives. The Blue Wave also flipped the state senate majority. State Sen. Dana Dow, R-Waldoboro, won his election in a close race and became the GOP Senate Leader. He spoke about his re-election and his role as GOP leader in winning back the senate. Dow won as a clean election candidate and he’s encouraging Republican senate candidates to do the same. “I know we don’t like the law, but if our candidates don’t do it, their opponents will,” he said. “The clean election candidates will get $60,000 and that amount of money is hard to raise here.”

He also joked about how much money Democrats are willing to spend. Dow said the state ended the fiscal year with a $150 surplus. “And they intend to spend that, too,” he said. “We should really be looking at spending money on the roads, but the Democrats are spending it on other things.”

The third speaker likely has the toughest race of all to win. Dr. Jay Allen is running as the Republican candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives. His opponent is five-term Democratic Congresswoman Chellie Pingree of North Haven. Allen spent 23 years in the U.S. Army and retired as a colonel. He lives with his family in Bristol and operates a private practice. He decided to run for Congress after watching the early Democratic presidential debates. “I realized our government was in danger of being taken over by socialists, and I knew it needed to stop,” he said. 

One of his patients is Dow, who urged him to seek a lower office. “His advice probably was good from a political perspective, but I saw it from a military one. The biggest threat to this country is a Democratic congress and we need someone who better represents our Maine values,” Allen said.

Local Republicans circulated nominating papers for local candidates on the June primary ballot. There was a nominating paper for excluding ranked-choice voting on presidential elections. Ranked choice voting won’t be used on the March 3 Presidential ballot, but it will in future elections. Republicans were united in their support for removing presidential elections from ranked choice voting and they plan on seeking to remove the controversial method in all elections.