2 min read
Clockwise from top left: Sen. Angus King, Sen. Susan Collins, Rep. Jared Golden and Rep. Chellie Pingree

Democratic U.S. Reps. Chellie Pingree and Jared Golden will not attend President Donald Trump’s upcoming State of the Union speech, but they have different plans for tuning in.

U.S. Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, will attend Tuesday evening’s annual speech from the Republican president, while the office of U.S. Sen. Angus King, I-Maine, said he is a maybe. King, who caucuses with Democrats, was still finalizing his schedule as of Thursday afternoon. He has both attended and missed past speeches from Trump and former President Joe Biden.

Pingree, a North Haven progressive who has represented Maine’s 1st District since 2009, plans to join more than a dozen other Democratic lawmakers at a counterrally Tuesday evening on the National Mall hosted by MoveOn and other progressive groups, spokesperson Gabrielle Mannino said.

Golden, a moderate from Maine’s 2nd District who is not seeking reelection this year, said he will watch Trump’s speech from home in Lewiston.

“I’ve been to six of these addresses, three by President Trump and three by President Biden,” Golden said Thursday. “I’m interested in what the president has to say, but I’ve had my fill of pomp and circumstance.”

It’s far from unprecedented for Democrats to display dissent during congressional speeches by Trump. Last year, when Trump gave his first “joint address” after returning to the White House, a number of Democratic lawmakers skipped the speech, walked out midway through it or, in the case of U.S. Rep. Al Green of Texas, got kicked out for yelling at the president.

Last year, Pingree attended Trump’s speech, inviting along a farmer who she said had been hurt by the president’s efforts to freeze some federal spending. But she wasn’t happy it and left early, releasing a scathing statement afterward in which she called the speech “a bizarre spectacle of lies, fearmongering, score-settling, and Orwellian-level propaganda.”

Billy covers politics for the Press Herald. He joined the newsroom in 2026 after also covering politics for the Bangor Daily News for about two and a half years. Before moving to Maine in 2023, the Wisconsin...

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