Trump ally and former Maine Republican Gov. Paul Lepage aims for a political comeback

Lyston, Min – Exclusive – Former ruler Paul Leipage of Min state of Maine says that President Donald Trump is a major reason for his exit from political retirement at the age of 76-as he looks forward to the return of the campaign.

Liepage said this week in the first national interview after he launched his home in the second congressional area of ​​Maine, a swinging seat aimed at stirring in the mid -term elections for 2026.

The competition is likely to be one of the most monitored house races in the country next year, as Republicans aim to keep their fragile majority in the room.

“He does not think that Donald Trump is doing what is necessary in treating the debts that this country faces. I think this is a big and large thing for me,” said Lybag, who is interviewing with him in the city of Min, where he was born.

The head of the Republicans’ Campaign in the House

“I have a White House friend at the moment. I know President Trump. I think I can get an audience from President Trump. I know that many of his trustees are well. So I think this is a good time. It’s a good time for me to help.”

The loud and frank politician who defeated the workers with blue collapses who struggle with economic problems, helped the Republican businessman win the elections and re-elected him in the Blue Agreement-one of the first major elected officials in the Republican Party who supported Trump when the president runs for the first time to the White House for nearly a decade.

“Donald Trump before Donald Trump was common,” said Libggue at that time, in a line that has become famous since then.

The conservative ruler, who attracted the national attention with controversial comments during his term, moved for a short period with his wife Ann, to Florida after he finished his second term in 2019.

He said at the time: “I have finished politics. I have finished eight years. It is time for someone else.”

Democrats Congress targeting these Republicans in the House of Representatives in 2026 mid -term battle

But LePage re -resided in Maine five years ago and challenged behind him as a ruler, Janet Mills’s democratic ruler, in the 2022 elections.

LePage ended with a 13 -point width loss to Mills, but he carried the second Congress in this race.

Moderate Deputy Democrat Jared Golden, an American naval warrior who was published in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, whose party is often in Congress, has been seat since his first victory in 2018.

Representative Jared Golden, Die Min, at a press conference in the Capitol in the United States on Wednesday, March 6, 2024, represented the second Congress in Maine since it won the first time in the seat in 2018. (Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc. via Getty Images)

But Golden won his re -election with a high margin last year in the region, the second most country in the United States and the largest east of the Mississippi River.

Trump, who carried the region in the 2016, 2020 and 2024 presidential elections, got nine and 10 points, an electoral vote every time, such as Min and Nebraska, are the only two countries in the Federation to allocate their electoral votes partially by the Congress.

Maine takes the goal of his democratic colleagues on politics

“I believed that Paul was doing the best action in retirement,” Golden said in a statement after Leipage announced his candidacy.

But 42 -year -old Golden has not yet announced whether he will seek to re -election next year or instead runs for the state’s Senate seat or the Open Governor’s office.

In an interview with Fox News, LePage repeated that the nation’s debts are the highest motivation to return to politics. As of May 8, the National Religion has reached 36,212,886,11111158.26, according to Fox News’s national debts.

“The spending and religion that this country has, and I am concerned about my grandchildren and grandchildren. I think we have a president now ready to address this, and I am ready to help,” he said.

But LePage added that “the other thing that is really big is what happens in our country with an awakening environment. I think I want to be there to help clean it if we can. The presence of boys in girls is really sad.”

He also highlighted his meeting on Tuesday-part of a three-day swing across the Congress-with the student in Mine Cassidy Carlel, who described him as “a common young woman who fights unfair competition in girls’ sports.”

Min County in the second Congress shares a long limit with Canada.

When asked whether he would be easier for border security and migration as major issues in his campaign, Lepage said, “Time time.”

But the controversial definitions that the president put on countries around the world last month have strained relations with Canada.

Former state governor Paul Leipage, who runs a Republic of Congress in 2026, is speaking to a voter in a rifle and internal shooting store, on May 7, 2025, in Poland, Maine. (Fox News – Paul Steinhauser)

“I am everything for definitions,” said Lepage. “Definitions will reform our international trade and low taxes.”

“Will it be damaged in the short term? Yes, it will hurt it a little in the short term, but I think it is necessary.”

He expected that “the definitions would be a short -term problem. I think they will settle.”

LePage spoke with Fox News at the Lyston Franco Center, a theatrical art center and the historical site of French -American culture located in a previous Gothic Church built in 1907 for Canadian Canadian immigrants in Maine, which is located alongside historical mills and historical channels.

Former Mine State Governor Paul Leipage, who runs the 2026 republics campaign for Congress, wanders to the Franco Center, a theatrical art center and a historical site for French -American culture in a previous Gothic Church in Lyston, on May 7, 2025. (Fox News – Paul Steinhauser)

The former ruler, who survived a disturbing and often brutal education, gave Fox News a tour of many housing inside the blocs of the Franco Center, where he spent his childhood.

The eldest son of 18 children, Lepage grew up in French speaking in a poor house with an alcoholic father and abusive was a mill worker.

At the age of eleven, he escaped from the house after his father hit him and broke his nose. He lived in the streets of Lyston and often crashed into friends of friends for a few years before earning a living shining shoes and washing dishes in a restaurant and squares for a local truck driver.

“I had a very approximate education as young people. We were in a luxury, we were in poverty,” he said.

Former Maine Governor Paul Leipage indicates a building site in which he lived during his childhood, in Loueson, Maine, on May 7, 2025. (Fox News – Paul Steinhauser)

“It is a good feeling in this building. This was a private building. Two nuns and priests were really useful in my upbringing,” Leipage said, speaking in the church where he was baptized and resorted to the problems of his family, told Fox News.

He continued to graduate from high school, with financial help from friends, he came and graduated from college.

He later enjoyed success as a businessman, including Marden’s excess and rescue surplus, which is the Maine -based discount chain.

Years later, he ventured politics, won the elections in the Wutelil City Council, and then worked as the mayor of the city before winning a position at the state level in 2010.

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The former ruler says that his harsh childhood has affected his political life in a way that many other politicians can understand.

Unfortunately, “Unfortunately, the mentality in the current society is not to help people get out of poverty, but it is to keep them in poverty.”

“I want to help them get them out of poverty,” he said. “I think there are many programs that we can establish and that will raise people in poverty, rather than keeping them.”