House Speaker Mike Johnson speaks Wednesday at the Auburn Mall during a campaign stop to support 2nd Congressional District candidate Austin Theriault. Johnson has been traveling the country campaigning for Republican candidates. Andree Kehn/Sun Journal

AUBURN — U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson told a crowd Wednesday at the Auburn Mall that Maine’s 2nd Congressional District race “will decide the fate of our freedom.”

“We’re going to flip this seat,” said Johnson, a Louisiana Republican who’s on a national tour of districts the GOP hopes to win in November.

Johnson said the road to a continued Republican majority in Congress runs through Maine.

Held since 2018 by U.S. Rep. Jared Golden, a Lewiston Democrat, the sprawling and rural district is widely considered one of the most likely to swing to the GOP because it has backed Donald Trump for president twice already.

The 42-year-old Golden, though, has proven the least loyal member of his party in the House during the past two years. He easily fended off challengers in 2020 and 2022.

This time around, 30-year-old Austin Theriault, of Fort Kent, a first-term state representative, is angling to snatch the seat back for the Republicans, who held it from 2014 to 2018.

“The future of our country literally runs through us being successful” in knocking “flip-flopper Jared Golden” out of office, Theriault told the cheering crowd.

Austin Theriault speaks to a crowd gathered Wednesday at the Auburn Mall as U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson stumps in Maine to support Republican candidates for office. Andree Kehn/Sun Journal

The message resonated with many of the more than 400 people who packed into a former store to hear from party leaders as they formally opened what they called a “battle station” intended to serve as headquarters for a big get-out-the-vote push.

“We need new blood,” said Rachel Trainer, of Mount Vernon, one of the first Republicans to arrive. “He’s young. He’s enthusiastic.”

Golden’s campaign quickly took aim at the Republicans.

“Austin Theriault was hand-picked by GOP insiders like Mike Johnson because they know he’ll rubber stamp their harmful, extreme agenda,” a Wednesday news release from Golden said. “Now he’s kissed the ring.”

U.S. Rep. Jared Golden, D-2nd District. Robert F. Bukaty/Associated Press

The Democrat’s campaign said that “Mainers need independent leadership in Congress. Austin Theriault is just another follower.”

The Maine Democratic Party said Theriault “is being bought and paid for by national GOP special interests including Mike Johnson’s leadership PAC. Washington Republicans know that Austin will walk the party line and be a rubber stamp for their policies.”

The party added that Theriault “will bow down to Party bosses and special interest groups” and adopt a Republican agenda that will “hurt Maine workers and families, including their extreme anti-choice agenda to ban abortion nationwide.”

Theriault said, however, that he’s in the race to represent people who feel forgotten and left behind.

“Too many people have forgotten what it’s like to struggle in rural America,” he said.

Theriault incorrectly said the nation is facing record inflation and gasoline prices – it is far from either record – and has a government that “is always in the way of progress.”

“Austin is fantastic,” Johnson said, calling him “the model for all of us right now.”

Pointing to Theriault’s record as a race car driver for a decade when he lived in North Carolina, Johnson said, “A NASCAR driver? We get the cool guys.”

House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., poses for a selfie Wednesday at the Auburn Mall during a campaign stop to support congressional candidate Austin Theriault. Johnson has been traveling the country campaigning for Republican candidates. Andree Kehn/Sun Journal

He hailed the many Republicans who showed up for the event, saying it drew the biggest crowd any of the three dozen other battle station openings had achieved.

Looking at the packed headquarters across from a bookstore inside the mall, Johnson called it “the best use of a shoe store” he’d ever seen.

Johnson, a Louisiana lawyer first elected to Congress in 2016, has served as House speaker for 10 months. He took the job after a conservative rebellion ousted Speaker Kevin McCarthy, a California Republican.

Golden helped Johnson stave off a bid in May to remove him as speaker for pushing through military aid to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan.

At the time, Golden said that “McCarthy was an untrustworthy leader” but that Johnson didn’t deserve ouster “for doing the right thing.”

Besides, Golden said, “removing the speaker would mean weeks or months of time lost to a chaotic House GOP infighting” that should be spent on issues reducing “illegal crossings” of the U.S. border, fighting fentanyl importation, improving internet access and fighting corruption.

“Our politics are broken enough,” Golden said. “I will not vote for more chaos or to waste the precious time we have left to do the people’s work.”

In his speech Wednesday, Johnson never mentioned Golden by name or took issue with him on any positions.

He focused instead on the necessity of winning Republican races and maintaining control of the House.

“I’m an ambassador of hope,” Johnson said. “We are going to win.”

Kathy Frye, of Turner, left, attends a campaign rally Wednesday for 2nd Congressional District candidate Austin Theriault at the Auburn Mall. “I support conservative candidates,” Frye said. “Period.” Andree Kehn/Sun Journal