PORTLAND, Maine — Chellie Pingree is now as familiar a face in Congress as she is at home on the island of North Haven. Taking office in 2009, Pingree is running for a ninth term in the House of Representatives.
While few of her re-election bids have been competitive, Pingree insists on not making assumptions.
“You never want to take any race for granted,” she said in an interview with NEWS CENTER Maine earlier this month.
Facing challenges from Republican Ron Russell and independent Ethan Alcorn, Pingree is running as she often has: a left-of-center Democrat with a focus on agricultural and environmental policy.
“I think a lot of people know me because I work hard on rural issues,” Pingree said.
In her most recent term in Congress, she has introduced a bill to better collect data on organic dairy farms in hopes of understanding the costs these farms have to bear. Earlier this month, she also put forth legislation to provide tax credits for hazard mitigation projects on working waterfronts.
But in a district at the heart of the state’s affordable housing crisis, bringing down home costs has grabbed the most airtime in this race.
While her opponent Russell favors the construction of smaller houses to bring down costs—and Alcorn wants to see the government step aside to let the free market solve the issue—Pingree is calling for more federal investment, especially from the Department of Housing and Urban Development, to build low income housing and improve housing stock in general.
“Maine has done a pretty good job of trying to invest more in housing, but we really need the federal money to come back here,” Pingree explained. “Being there to fight for that kind of funding that will come directly back to Maine is really important.”
As some in the GOP criticize the use of state and federal taxpayer dollars to house asylum seekers, Pingree proposed a bill to cut the time this group of immigrants has to wait before receiving authorization to work—allowing them, in theory, to pay for their own housing sooner.
“Most people who come into our country are just saying, ‘Let me go to work,'” Pingree said of the legislation.
On many other issues swaying the electorate this year, Pingree’s stances are unsurprising for a representative of a district anchored by deep-blue Portland and the Midcoast.
On abortion, the eight-term incumbent wants to codify the protections of Roe V. Wade in federal law. On guns, she supports an assault weapons ban and a strengthening of red flag laws.
Pingree is also a strong proponent of investing in renewable energy and is wary of Vice President Kamala Harris’ strong support of domestic oil drilling.
“Well, there’s never anybody in politics that you’re completely aligned with, even the people that you’re closest to in your own party,” she explained.
However, during a debate with Russell and Alcorn this month, Pingree did use domestic oil drilling as a supporting point in defending the Biden administration’s energy policy.
“We are net energy producers. We are the ones who are picking up the slack when people don’t want to buy from Russia,” Pingree said.
In a state where moderates and independents reign, Pingree stands out in Maine’s congressional delegation as a solid rank-and-file Democrat. This has put her at odds with her moderate Democratic colleague, Congressman Jared Golden. This summer, Golden wrote an op-ed in the Bangor Daily News titled “Donald Trump is going to win the election and democracy will be just fine.”
“I didn’t agree with him,” Pingree, who endorsed Vice President Harris, explained. “I totally understand that everybody who serves in office has the right to have their own opinion [and] their own strategy about how best to represent the people of their district. But I just couldn’t possibly ever say that we’d ever be fine with Donald Trump.”
No matter who is in the White House in January, Pingree insists she has no plans of winding down her long career in Congress.
“There’s some value in doing a job and getting to know the job and do it well,” she said.