Former NASCAR Driver Running to Unseat Democrat - One of the Most Competitive 2024 Races
The 2024 Republican primary field in Maine’s 2nd Congressional District has a new entrant accustomed to competitive races.
According to ABC News, former NASCAR driver Austin Theriault announced Monday that he will seek election to Congress.
Savannah Viar of the National Republican Congressional Committee described Maine’s 2nd District as one of the nation’s most competitive.
Democrat Jared Golden currently holds the seat.
In 2022, Golden emerged from a three-way race in a state with ranked-choice voting. He failed to secure 50 percent of the vote during the first round but then, after the allocation of ranked votes, defeated his Republican challenger by a margin of less than 19,000.
Thus, Republicans view the seat as winnable.
Theriault, a 29-year-old state representative, has sounded a populist note.
“Regular hard-working folks are getting held down by out-of-touch, out-of-state elites who are clueless about how hard it is to make a living in Maine,” he said while announcing his candidacy.
As a former professional athlete, the youthful Theriault brings a unique element to the Republican race.
Theriault made five starts in what for him became an abbreviated 2019 racing season in NASCAR’s top-level Cup Series. An injury sustained in a wreck at Alabama’s Talladega Superspeedway in October of that year cut short Theriault’s NASCAR career.
Two aspects of Theriault’s nascent candidacy inspire broader reflections.
First, Republicans’ narrow majority in the House of Representatives leads one to wonder where Maine’s 2nd District might rank on the national party’s 2024 priority list.
Democrats need to flip only four seats to regain control of the House. Much hangs, therefore, on each close race.
This leads directly to the second and more important reflection, namely, what kind of Republican Theriault will be.
Theriaut’s populist rhetoric — taking aim at “out-of-touch, out-of-state elites” — might endear him to supporters of former President Donald Trump. Indeed, such rhetoric will likely play well in Maine’s rural 2nd District.
On the other hand, paeans to populism come cheap during campaign seasons.
After all, if corporate Joe Biden can picket with striking United Auto Workers in Detroit as he did on Tuesday, then shameless hypocrisy has no bounds. What politicians say or even how they act is no measure of their sincerity.
On the whole, it is probably best to take a practical approach to competitive seats such as the one Theriault seeks.
Admittedly, Republicans at the national level often disappoint us. They vote for profligate spending and endless wars. Many become part of the establishment we despise.
Still, we need only think about Democrats chairing House committees to remember how important each seat can be.
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