{"id":1309,"date":"2026-04-30T22:31:47","date_gmt":"2026-04-30T22:31:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/voterguide.local\/?p=1309"},"modified":"2026-05-23T15:30:22","modified_gmt":"2026-05-23T15:30:22","slug":"joseph-m-baldacci-cg-2","status":"publish","type":"candidate","link":"https:\/\/www.pressherald.com\/voter-guide\/candidates\/joseph-m-baldacci-cg-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Joseph M Baldacci"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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About the Candidate<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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Elected to the Bangor City Council four times, served twice as mayor and was elected to the state Senate three times.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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Education<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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UMaine B.A., Maine Law J.D.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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Previous campaigns and elected office(s) held<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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State Senate 2020-present; Bangor City Council 1996-2002 and 2011-2017; Mayor 1998-1999, 2016-2017; never lost an election<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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Why are you running?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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My life and career have been centered around serving the people of northern Maine. Whether it’s representing them in court or in the Legislature, I strive to help the members of my community. I am running to ensure that the people of this district have a fighter in DC who responds only to them. I want to make sure that folks in Maine are set up for success \u2014 whether that’s securing a job with fair wages, ensuring access to affordable healthcare, or protecting hard-eared Social Security benefits.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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Top three priorities<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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Supporting working families by increasing wages, lowering prices and making sure healthcare and childcare is accessible and affordable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Protecting Social Security and Medicare and ensuring its solvency.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Keeping rural hospitals open and funded for Mainers who rely on their services.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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If elected, how would you work with the Trump administration to deliver results for Maine? How would you push back?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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I am willing to work with any administration on issues that we agree will make the lives of Maine people better. If they want to lower the cost of healthcare, medication and housing AND have realistic, responsible plans to do so, I am on board. However, I will push back at every opportunity when their policies make the lives of Mainers harder and more costly and don\u2019t align with our values.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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Would you pledge to support your party\u2019s current leaders in Congress? If so, why? If not, why not?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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Yes, I would support my current party\u2019s leaders. The current House leadership has done a good job standing up for Americans with the limited ability they have in a minority. In the future, I will support leadership that works to support the working class, and will hold them accountable.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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If you could change one thing about how Washington functions, what would it be and why?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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We need to root out the corruption in D.C. that prevents us from delivering real results for Americans. Reforms like stock trading bans for members, term limits, getting dark money out of politics \u2014 these are structural fixes that will meaningfully increase Congress\u2019 responsiveness to the American people and let us deliver all of the promises we make on the campaign trail, not just small wins every time we get in the majority.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":2040,"template":"","meta":{"voter_guide_candidate_first_name":"Joseph","voter_guide_candidate_middle_name":"M","voter_guide_candidate_last_name":"Baldacci","voter_guide_candidate_suffix":"","voter_guide_candidate_race_id":2150,"voter_guide_candidate_age":61,"voter_guide_candidate_hometown":"","voter_guide_candidate_occupation":"Attorney","voter_guide_candidate_bio":"","voter_guide_candidate_education":"","voter_guide_candidate_years_in_state":0,"voter_guide_candidate_years_in_municipality":0,"voter_guide_candidate_time_in_area":"Entire life spent in Bangor other than 3 years in Portland during law school","voter_guide_candidate_website":"","voter_guide_candidate_headshot_url":"","voter_guide_candidate_date_filed":"3\/13\/2026","voter_guide_candidate_incumbent_years":"","voter_guide_candidate_is_clean_elections":false,"footnotes":""},"vg_party":[1073],"vg_residence_municipality":[343],"class_list":["post-1309","candidate","type-candidate","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","vg_party-democratic","vg_residence_municipality-bangor"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pressherald.com\/voter-guide\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/candidates\/1309","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pressherald.com\/voter-guide\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/candidates"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pressherald.com\/voter-guide\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/candidate"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.pressherald.com\/voter-guide\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/candidates\/1309\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3182,"href":"https:\/\/www.pressherald.com\/voter-guide\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/candidates\/1309\/revisions\/3182"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pressherald.com\/voter-guide\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2040"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pressherald.com\/voter-guide\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1309"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"vg_party","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pressherald.com\/voter-guide\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/vg_party?post=1309"},{"taxonomy":"vg_residence_municipality","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pressherald.com\/voter-guide\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/vg_residence_municipality?post=1309"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}