ABOUT THIS EPISODE
Richard Chew is joined by Matt Dunlap, 2026 candidate for Congress in Maine's 2nd Congressional District.
The discussion focused on Dunlap’s congressional campaign, emphasizing health care affordability, economic pressures, and congressional accountability. Here are a few key points from the conversation:
- Dunlap identified health care access and affordability as the campaign’s central concerns; he supports universal health care and criticized cuts to Medicaid and Medicare.
- He called for fully funding low-income heating assistance and raising the federal minimum wage; he opposes the congressionally unauthorized war in Iran.
- He argued that higher wages and reduced employer health care costs would increase economic activity.
- Dunlap described strong voter engagement, including crowded town halls, door-to-door canvassing, phone banking, and 27,000 volunteer calls in one week.
- He emphasized the national impact of congressional votes and urged supporters nationwide to contribute through his campaign website.
Key quote: "There's been an enormous amount of energy this cycle. I've been involved in political activity since 1996, or before. I volunteered for my first campaign in 1990, and you'd have like a local committee meeting and five or six people would show up. In fact, the Old Town City Committee, Democratic Committee, we used to meet basically to hand out the phone list to call people to see if they wanted to be delegates to the state convention. We had 26 slots. We never had 26 people show up. And to see some of these meetings now where people have to stand in the back of the room because there's not enough seating.
"We had a town hall last night, and here we are, it's a Tuesday night, it's nice weather, and to have 50, 60 people show up, at the dinner hour, to hear what I have to say. . . . We have people out canvassing door to door right now and doing phone banking. Volunteers for my campaign did 27,000 calls last week. And people are stepping up and they're giving money, sometimes money they can't afford to give, and they are getting involved. They're going out. People that I know who are very quiet, reclusive people [are] taking their clipboard and they're going door to door and they're talking to voters, because they know what's at stake. And if we don't get our hands around this election, we may not have another chance."
Catch "Chew's Views with Richard Chew” weekdays from 6:00 to 8:00 a.m. Central on WCPT (heartlandsignal.com/programs/chews-views).
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