Highlights from our conversation on April 6, 2026
Building care infrastructure and economic equity
What are your top policy priorities to address the barriers and challenges facing the care work industry (child care, elder care and health care) and systemically undervalued and underpaid care workers, 80% of whom are women?
“We need to have a universal childcare program in this country that's going to look different in different areas. I'm a big fan of kind of experimenting in communities, because each community is going to have different needs. At the end of the day, though, that experimentation is only going to be effective if it's backed by resources. Which I fundamentally think is the purpose of the federal government. I'm a big Medicare-for-all person. I think any universal healthcare system is going to have to include end-of-life care or you know, like, in-home care for people who can't take care of themselves. I mean, what's important to me is everybody providing that kind of care is treated as though they're providing a service, and their labor is compensated. And I think the best way we do that is by incorporating all of it into a federal program that can be backed up by federal funds and support.”
How would you approach proposals at the Federal level similar to Maine’s new Paid Family and Medical Leave law and program?
“Paid family leave, maternity leave, paternity leave. This also, by the way, this needs to extend to sick leave. These are things that… we can provide…in our society, we simply choose not to. And with a lot of these things, I don't think putting the responsibility and the onus onto states is really effective. I mean, I love that we have Paid Family Medical Leave here in the state of Maine. Also, you know, it still gives us, like, a resource scarcity. Because especially small rural states with smaller tax bases, there is only so much we can do. I do think the actual answer to this is backstopping all of it with money and resources from the federal level, which is one of the reasons I want to be in the U.S. Senate, not just the… State Senate.”
"What's important to me is everybody providing that kind of care is treated as though they're providing a service, and their labor is compensated.”
"Paid family leave, maternity leave, paternity leave…These are things that we can provide…in our society, we simply choose not to.”
Ensuring reproductive and gender-specific healthcare
What do you see as the biggest barriers and challenges facing access to consistent, high-quality perinatal care?
“We have ceased to have a system that cares about providing actual, like, healthcare outcomes for people, and it's just become a system that is beholden to those in power and wealth who are trying to use it as a piggy bank. I mean, we need to reopen pretty much all of the closed and shuttered rural health clinics and units across the state. I think that needs to be done with federal dollars at this point…It's just a resource issue at the end of the day. I mean, this stuff is closed because we've created a system which does not prioritize putting resources into providing care. We've created a system that prioritizes, does this work for somebody's profit margins? And rural healthcare does not work for people's profit margins… The issues here are systemic. And it's not just healthcare, it's also how we educate people in healthcare, and then allow them to pursue careers that are actually going to be beneficial to their communities, not just figuring out how they can repay hundreds of thousands of dollars in loans.”
What do you see as the key policy interventions to protect access to family planning and reproductive health care given recent federal Title X funding cuts?
“For the record, it's not about going back to Roe. Roe was not enough, hence why we lost it. We need to codify the right to an abortion in federal legislation for forever and all time. I mean…we should have done that. In the multiple times the Democrats had the opportunity to do so, and then chose not to. This time around, I think now that Roe has been overturned, the…argument that this needs to be not left up to some judicial, you know, like, reading… it's far more compelling than it used to be, but we also need to have voices in Washington that are going to be making that argument loud and clear.”
“We have ceased to have a system that cares about providing actual, like, healthcare outcomes for people, and it's just become a system that is beholden to those in power and wealth who are trying to use it as a piggy bank.”
“For the record, it's not about going back to Roe… We need to codify the right to an abortion in federal legislation for forever and all time.”
Ending gender-based and carceral violence
What do you see as the key policy interventions to support sexual assault and domestic violence survivors and protect access to services given recent federal VOCA funding cuts?
“It's a bit more philosophical, but I think we also need to have, as a nation, a bit more of a reckoning about how we view or how we interact with masculinity in general. In our world, one of the best ways to do that is to talk about it, and just to have, like, very blunt, upfront conversations about, frankly, the role of masculine insecurity and how it tends to result in violence against women. It's not a women's issue, it's a men's issue, but we treat it like it's a women's issue. And I think one of the best ways for us to have those conversations is to have people who are willing to go out and talk about it very publicly, which to me, it's rather important for a whole bunch of different reasons, but I do think I've got a unique voice in that conversation that some other folks just don't get to bring to it.”
“It's not a women's issue, it's a men's issue, but we treat it like it's a women's issue…I do think I've got a unique voice in that conversation that some other folks just don't get to bring to it.”
Developing equitable & accessible government systems
How do you think the tax structure and government budget can be used to create more gender equity and reduce disparities?
"We need to redo our tax code entirely for a whole bunch of reasons. One is to, you know, pull back a lot of the money that the rich people have stolen from everybody…We need to use the tax code to pull money back and put it into the system as social services and support networks. I think in doing that, especially kind of what we were talking about earlier when it comes to, say, providing actual compensation for care, which a lot of women are providing free of compensation… In the short term, that’s going to be one of the best ways for us to kind of redefine what work we see as valuable, and how valuable it is. If we just continue to leave it up to the sort of, I don't know, the profit-based model that we have, I fear that that won't be enough. And so I think one of the ways that we can redefine what work we see as a societal good, is by backing it up with federal funds and public money.”
What policies or approaches would you support to ensure all eligible voters can participate in elections, and that people who want to run for office are able to do so?
“Any attempt to restrict people's ability to vote needs to be fought firmly and clearly… I'm a normal person who got into this, and this is really goddamn hard as a regular human being… at its core, the existence of Citizens United, the ability of money to have more of a say in our politics than someone's, like, single voice, that is the reason regular human beings can't do this. We need to get money out of politics. If I have my way, elections will be publicly funded. And they would last 2 months, and that's what it should be down the road.”
“We need to use the tax code to pull money back and put it into the system as social services and support networks.”
“I'm a normal person who got into this, and this is really goddamn hard as a regular human being…We need to get money out of politics. If I have my way, elections will be publicly funded.”
Other notable quotes
“We've essentially offloaded responsibility of care onto people who we then essentially…take on their willingness to help family members, and their willingness to help community members, and we abuse it by not really treating it like it's a job. It's labor. All care is labor, and all labor, in my opinion, needs to be compensated.”
“People shouldn't have to worry about accessing health insurance. They shouldn't have health insurance, they should just have access to a healthcare system that provides them healthcare. So, and I know that it's a relatively simplistic answer, but for a lot of these things, the answers are actually rather simple. It's more a matter of building political will and power to make it happen.”
“We're gonna keep doing all the town hall stuff. I mean, I think at this point we've held 52 of those things. We're gonna keep doing that. Also, I mean, we have this conversation a lot, is how we're gonna structure the office. Because it is really important that we get the voices of regular Mainers. And people do not always have the opportunity to go to D.C. and meet with a Senator. So, we want to structure the office in a way that both here in Maine offices will be open and accessible to folks, but also that I'm going to be open and accessible to folks.”
Each profile features direct quotes pulled from candidate’s answers to our questions. Full transcripts of each conversation can be found by clicking here.