Republicans are seeking to make an issue of U.S. Rep. Jared Golden’s refusal to say who he plans for vote for in this year’s presidential election, but most voters probably don’t care, experts said.

Rep. Jared Golden, left, will face Republican challenger Austin Theriault in November in one of the most closely watched Congressional races in the country. Andree Kehn/Sun Journal and Joe Phelan/Kennebec Journal file photos

State Rep. Austin Theriault, a Fort Kent Republican who is angling to unseat the Lewiston Democrat, said recently that he’s told voters he will vote for Donald Trump “because they deserve to know where I stand on the issues and on the other leaders I’ll need to work with once they send me to Congress.”

“Transparency is key — something Jared Golden has forgotten,” Theriault said.

It probably won’t have much impact on the campaign, though.

“All is fair in election campaigns,” Mark Brewer, chairperson of the University of Maine’s political science department, said Tuesday.

“The hope by the GOP is that this will cause some strong Democrats to not vote for Golden because he doesn’t support the party enough,” Brewer said. “That was the same hope Democrats had in 2016 and 2020 with their criticism of Poliquin and Collins, respectively.”

James Melcher, a political science professor at the University of Maine at Farmington, said Tuesday that the GOP is likely frustrated that Golden isn’t providing them with information they can use against him.

He called the question “a trap” for Golden that’s also a common political tactic.

Brewer added that “at the end of the day these type of things don’t matter much at the ballot box as even disgruntled party members will usually vote for their person over an alternative from the other party.”

“I don’t think ultimately it’s going to cost him Democratic votes,” Melcher said, especially since Golden’s brand is to come off “as independent as Maine.”

Still, he said, “I can’t blame the Republicans for trying.”

Remaining mum on presidential choices has been so commonplace for Republicans in Maine that U.S. Sen. Susan Collins, the most senior GOP lawmaker from the Pine Tree State, won’t say who she voted for when Trump faced a reelection challenge in 2020 from Democrat Joe Biden.

In 2016, Republican U.S. Rep. Bruce Poliquin also refused to say whether he supported his party’s presidential nominee during Trump’s first bid for the White House.

Poliquin at the time insisted he did not need to get involved in “this media circus” and would focus his attention instead on the voters in Maine’s 2nd Congressional District.

That same year, Collins said she wouldn’t vote for Trump or his Democratic challenger, Hillary Clinton. She instead wrote in a former U.S. House speaker from Wisconsin, who wasn’t in the race.

In 2020, when she was locked in a what appeared to be a tight campaign to hang on to her own seat, Collins refused to say anything about her presidential choice. This month, she declined again to say how she voted.

This year, Golden, the man who defeated Poliquin in 2018, is taking the same approach as Trump tries for a third time to win the presidency.

“Who I vote for is no one’s business but my own,” Golden said in a written statement about the issue this month. “I want the people of Maine’s 2nd District to understand this: I don’t care if you plan to vote for Donald Trump, Kamala Harris, or none of the above.”

Golden has remained quiet about his choice for president ever since.

A spokesperson for the National Republican Campaign Committee, Savannah Viar, said Golden “has been dodging questions about who he is supporting for president” for weeks.

But Melcher said Democratic loyalists have other reasons to be annoyed with Golden because he’s rubbed some of them the wrong way on issues such as student loans.