Maine has a long history of being pro-gun, at least up until recent years. Sure, it’s been a blue state for a very long time, but the outdoor heritage coupled with low crime helped stave off the anti-gun push for generations. It wasn’t until Lewiston that everything changed there, which is a shame.
But not everyone is thrilled with gun control, and in the race for the Second Congressional District, candidates from both parties are claiming to be the champion for gun rights.
There are reasons to doubt one of them, though.
Former Governor Paul LePage has scored a potentially key endorsement for his Congressional campaign.
The National Rifle Association has officially endorsed the Republican for Maine’s Second Congressional District.
The announcement was made at a campaign event in Holden Thursday.
The NRA cited LePage’s record of protecting the Second Amendment.
…
LePage also took aim at his Democratic opponent Matt Dunlap’s Second Amendment record, claiming Dunlap has been accepting funding from organizations that do not support the Second Amendment.
LePage, who signed permitless carry into law when he was Maine’s governor, hasn’t been quiet about his criticisms. Dunlap, though, claims to support gun rights as well. The problem is how he’s making the claim.
I’d beat this Floridian in a skeet shooting contest any day of the week. pic.twitter.com/2XJPm52VT8 https://t.co/Yx1EQ1Oehk
— Matt Dunlap (@dunlap4congress) August 6, 2026
Note that this is in response to LePage’s claims that Dunlap is taking money from anti-gun organizations. He doesn’t counter the claim; he simply does the whole “I’m a hunter” bit and then challenges LePage to shoot skeet.
Uh…that’s not filling anyone with any confidence, to say the least, and Dunlap got absolutely bodied in the replies to his tweet, as he should have.
Let’s remember that Tim Walz did the whole “I’m an outdoorsman” thing while running to be vice president. He also favored a whole lot of gun control, very openly, the entire time. Touting your support for hunting and fishing doesn’t mean you’re someone who will have my back when the anti-gunners are pushing to ban AR-15s or to limit how many rounds I can have in my magazine.
The whole “I’m a hunter” thing has been used all too often to try and deflect criticism against anti-gunners, but we see through it for one very simple reason. The Second Amendment has nothing to do with hunting anything except tyrants. One could make a better argument against banning hunting rifles than AR-15s while trying to keep to the spirit of the Second Amendment, for crying out loud, though “shall not be infringed” means something there, too.
Dunlap has a very simple task before him. He can either actively repudiate these groups and give them the money back while vowing to actively protect all of our gun rights, or he needs to sit down and shut up because he’s just embarrassing himself at this point.
Since I think we all know that’s not going to happen, it’s clear who should be winning this campaign handily if gun rights actually mean anything to the people of the Maine Second Congressional District. It sure as hell isn’t Matt Dunlap.
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