With just 0.4 percent of the U.S. population, Maine is not the first state one might imagine Donald Trump to target so voraciously. Its image is defined more by coasts and forests than culture wars. Yet the state has become a particular focus of the president’s ire. What is the trigger? A single sentence spoken by Governor Janet Mills at the White House in a February governors’ meeting: “See you in court.”
That remark came after Trump challenged Mills on state policy, under the Maine Human Rights Act, allowing transgender students to participate in school sports per their gender identity.
Federal agencies began taking extraordinary steps against Maine within days of the encounter. And true to her word, Mills has seen them in court every step of the way. In some cases, the Trump administration backpedaled; in a few others, the congressional delegation intervened; and in others, court proceedings are ongoing.
The Trump administration has held up funds for after-school meals, universities, farmers, jails and, for a time, prevented people from applying for their newborns’ Social Security numbers in hospitals. Acting Social Security Commissioner Leland Dudeck even admitted he singled out Maine because he “was ticked” that Mills was not “real cordial to the president.”
Politically, Maine is complex. Centrists tend to do well statewide. Its southern congressional district, including Portland, is more liberal, while the Second District is more northern, rural, and conservative. Democrats hold both U.S. House seats, while an independent and a Republican represent the state in the U.S. Senate. Although Maine hasn’t voted for a Republican for president since 1988, Trump won the electoral vote of the more rural congressional district three times. Republican Paul LePage, who called himself “Trump before Trump,” won the governorship during the Tea Party midterms of 2014 and was re-elected. However, LePage also lost in a landslide when he challenged Mills’s reelection bid in 2022. He featured the same attacks on Mills that Trump is now rehashing.
Maine also has a New England mind-your-own-business Yankeeism that perhaps helped make it an early adopter of LGBTQ+ rights and dovetails with its tendency to resent people “from away” telling Mainers what to do. This is amplified in its heralding of long-prized leaders, both women, and men, who stand up to pressure, most famously Margaret Chase Smith, the state’s Republican U.S. Senator who challenged Joseph McCarthy and first-term Republican House Member Bill Cohen who broke with his party as a member of the House Judiciary Committee considering impeachment in 1974, opening the door that led to Richard Nixon’s demise. Governor Mills fits this mold. During an earlier dispute with Trump, she observed, “I have spent the better part of my career listening to loud men talk tough to disguise their weakness.”
After the Trump-Mills verbal fisticuffs, the first administration attack came from the Department of Education as a Title IX investigation into Maine’s Education Department and a school district for “continuing to allow at least one male student to compete in girls’ categories.” The Department of Health and Human Services immediately followed suit, launching a probe of the University of Maine System “based on information that Maine intends to defy” the president’s executive order on transgender athletes. The UMaine System, however, was already “compliant when the NCAA updated its rules in February,” according to the System’s Chief External and Government Affairs Officer, Samantha Warren. In February, Attorney General Pam Bondi “put Maine on notice,” threatening to sue if “relevant Maine entities are indeed denying girls an equal opportunity to participate in sports and athletic events by requiring them to compete against” trans girls.
Remarkably, none of these “investigations” included interviews, data requests, or negotiations. Maine’s Attorney General was notified via email of the violations and its referral to the Justice Department.
Then, the U.S. Department of Agriculture notified the governor and the University of Maine System that it had launched a Title IX review, jeopardizing over $100 million in grants. As a land-grant university, the University of Maine System receives funds for workforce preparation and to promote research-driven innovations for Maine’s natural economy. USDA paused $30 million in funding. In February, the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), part of the Department of Commerce, notified the University System that its long-standing $4.5 million Sea Grant program was “no longer relevant to the focus of the Administration’s priorities and program objectives.” All monies supporting marine research, strengthening fishing communities, and funding for thousands of jobs related to the state’s 3500 miles of coastline were subsequently axed. Yet the other 33 Sea Grant states kept theirs. After Maine’s congressional delegation complained, the decision was reversed.
On March 10, two weeks after the Agriculture Department launched its investigation into the University System, it paused funding while the agency evaluated follow-up actions to “prospective Title VI or Title IX violations.” Last fiscal year, USDA awarded $29.78 million for research on PFAS—widely used, long-lasting toxic chemicals—contamination on farms, sustainable packaging materials from forest-based materials, potatoes, lobster fishing, and support for youth leadership and STEM skill development programs. Three days later, the agency backtracked.
On March 17, the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office for Civil Rights announced that the Maine Principals’ Association and Greely High School violated Title IX by allowing transgender girls to compete in girls’ sports. On March 20, Trump’s Department of Education found Maine’s DOE in violation of a federal civil rights rule banning sex-based discrimination in schools. It was given ten days to comply with Trump’s executive order. On March 24, while at an event celebrating the purchase of a Bangor mobile home park by its residents, Mills again affirmed her refusal to capitulate. The U.S. Education Department instituted another investigation on March 28 of the Maine DOE for potential violations of the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, giving the state until April 11 to comply.
The US DOE began pulling all of Maine’s federal K-12 funding on April 11: $250 million this year alone, much of which supports disabled and low-income students. As of this writing, a lawsuit is pending.
On April 2, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins announced she would freeze “funds for certain administrative and technological functions in schools,” warning it was “only the beginning.” Farmers poured into Augusta, the state capital, on April 15 to protest cuts to federal grants, the cancellation of support for school lunches, and the firing of USDA workers. On April 8, the Department of Justice terminated federal funding for several grant programs. U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi told “Fox and Friends” the cuts were made because a transgender woman was incarcerated in a Maine women’s prison.
Maine politicians and organizations have been divided in their response. The Maine Superintendents and Maine Principals associations are at odds with each other: the former supports Trump’s federal ban on transgender participation in sports, while the latter, which oversees high school sports, affirms its support for the Maine Human Rights Act and the Governor. Within the Maine Legislature, there’s a stark partisan divide. Of note is Republican state Representative Laurel Libby, censured by the Maine House for a Facebook post featuring a photo of a transgender high school student without their consent. Libby filed an emergency application with the Supreme Court to restore her right to vote and speak on the floor immediately.
Governor Mills says she’s defending state anti-discrimination laws from a power-hungry federal government acting arbitrarily and inflicting pain on “hungry school kids, hardworking fishermen, senior citizens, new parents, and countless Maine people.” Mills also emphasized limits to federal and executive powers, saying the Constitution “doesn’t allow [Trump] to make laws out of whole cloth by tweet or Instagram post or press release or executive order.”
The state’s congressional delegation has responded as one might expect. Representative Chellie Pingree, a Democrat, fully supported the governor, saying, “The Trump administration isn’t upholding the law. “They’re rewriting it to serve their politics. It’s an outrageous abuse of power.” Jared Golden, the representative from Maine’s 2nd district, which went for Trump, has remained silent. A spokesperson for Senator Angus King, an Independent who caucuses with Democrats, said his office “is reviewing the claims and procedures at the heart of this action.” Senator Susan Collins, a Republican, responded, “People who are transgender deserve to be treated with respect and dignity.” But, she added, “While I will continue to advocate strongly for federal funding for Maine, I disagree with the state’s position.”
There are very few trans-girls playing sports in Maine or elsewhere, but Trump used these policies in a potent, symbolic manner in his 2024 campaign, as he is doing now against Maine. Other states have similar laws, so why did Trump target Maine and Mills? “Getting even” is Trump’s game. Given his blatant misogyny, going after a female governor was too enticing a target.
Maine’s slogan is less evocative than New Hampshire’s “Live Free or Die.” In Latin, it proclaims Dirigo: “We lead.” So far, Maine has pushed back, with many Trump attacks reversed after political pressure and lawsuits, demonstrating, at least for now, the power of resistance.
