PORTLAND (NEWS CENTER Maine) – Maine’s 2nd District Congressional candidates faced off in a heated and intense Voice of the Voted candidate forum Monday night.
NEWS CENTER Maine welcomed the four candidates in Maine’s highly-contested and expensive race to highlight some of the issues that matter to them.
-Bruce Poliquin (R)
-Jared Golden (D)
-Tiffany Bond (I)
-Will Hoar (I)
Instead, it became more of a sparring match between front runners incumbent Republican Bruce Poliquin and democratic challenger Jared Golden.
“Jared’s just not telling the truth,” Poliquin said.
Poliquin slammed Golden for being a quote ‘radical socialist’—using the line from one his campaign ads over and over again.
The move automatically put Golden on the defensive. He said it is completely untrue.
“I have worked across the aisle with republicans on a number of very important bills and pieces of legislations to help veterans, to protect youth from suicide,” Golden said. “When Bruce says that, what he is suggest is that I am somehow unamerican.”
Among the issues, gun control came up in the debate between Golden and Poliquin over ratings with the National Rifle Association.
"I have an A rating with the NRA. Jared has a D rating,” Poliquin said.
Golden, who has largely campaigned on his support of the Second Amendment as a democrat, shot it down.
"I got dinged by the NRA because I took a stand to protect the victims of domestic abuse,” he said. “So be it.”
Independent candidate Tiffany Bond chimed in to say there needs to be more conversation about gun restrictions.
"Let's work out the kinks a little bit, get some data and see what makes sense to keep our kids, my kids safe,” Bond said.
The topics of infrastructure and the economy came to the forefront—as incumbent Poliquin insisted the economy was ‘doing great.’
Independent candidate Will Hoar disagreed.
"The economy up here doesn't reflect what's coming out of Washington,” Hoar said.
Democratic State Representative candidate Golden agreed with Hoar, saying that his family owned a small business. He said more needs to be done to support those businesses in Maine.
"The President of the United States ran on a platform of rebuilding America, and I don't know why this Republican-controlled Congress has not done a big infrastructure package which could include things like broadband,” Golden said.
The biggest issue of the night: access to health care.
“I’m what the ACA sucks for,” Bond said. “I'm in the ‘I can afford just enough to pay premiums that make sure I can't go to the doctor.’"
Hoar and Golden called out Poliquin for ‘voting against’ the Affordable Care Act.
"As much as Representative Poliquin protests, he did vote against the Affordable Care Act plain and simple,” Hoar said. “We need to stop repealing what's already been in place.”
The health care debate sparked the largest blow up of the forum, with Poliquin and Golden facing off over Poliquin’s assertion he protected those with pre-existing conditions, despite the bill’s language.
In the end, the candidates were fighting to have the final word.
"I'm the only individual on this stage that has 35 years of experience creating jobs,” Poliquin said.
“Bruce is treating like this issues as though it is just some kind of political game. That is why we have so much dysfunction in Congress,” Golden said.
"Let's make politics the way it should be, where we're hiring somebody who focuses on skills and functionality,” Bond said.
"Partisan politics has reached a crazy level and in my mind there are no sides in doing the right thing,” Hoar said.
You can read more on the candidates and keep up with future debates here.