Former Gov. Paul LePage is no longer a Maine resident.
The controversial two-term governor, who left office a year ago, is registered to vote in Flagler County, Florida.
He is still a Republican.
LePage, 71, and his wife, Ann, bought a house in 2018 in a gated, private golf course community called Plantation Bay in Ormond Beach.
They paid $360,000 for a pretty one-story home with, as its real estate agent once described, a “big pool” with a huge covered porch overlooking “the serene wooded setting.”
Two months later, the LePages sold their home in Boothbay Harbor for a bit more than they paid for the house in Florida.
A house in Ormond Beach that Ann LePage bought in 2008 was sold late in 2017 for $207,000. Also a Republican, she registered to vote in Florida in 2018, after the gubernatorial election in Maine.
The ex-governor’s move was not a surprise.
He told radio hosts shortly before the 2018 election, when voters picked Democrat Janet Mills to succeed him, that he had every intention of leaving the Pine Tree State.
“I’ll be a resident of Florida if Janet Mills wins,” said LePage, who was prohibited from running for a third term. He added that he would depart even if Republican Shawn Moody won.
“I’m going to retire and go to Florida. I’m done with politics. I’ve done my eight years. It’s time for somebody else,” LePage said then.
Over the summer, the LePages came back to Maine and worked together at McSeagulls in Boothbay Harbor, where the former governor tended bar for tourists as well as old friends.
The Boothbay Register said the pair had been at their winter home in Florida before Ann convinced her husband to join her working at the popular restaurant.
LePage, who could not be reached Friday, said he would likely teach at a university in Florida, but he also said a desire to avoid taxes played a big role in his thinking.
“I’ll tell you very simply, I have a house in Florida. I will pay no income tax” and less in property tax, the governor said.
“At my age, why wouldn’t you conserve your resources and spend it on your family and not taxes?” he asked.
Even so, the Lewiston native and ex-mayor of Waterville still occasionally tells radio interviewers in Maine that he may run for office again in his home state.
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