Rep. Jared Golden (D-ME) wrote in an op-ed for the Bangor Daily News that Donald Trump is going to win the presidential election.

“After the first presidential debate, lots of Democrats are panicking about whether President Joe Biden should step down as the party’s nominee. Biden’s poor performance in the debate was not a surprise. It also didn’t rattle me as it has others, because the outcome of this election has been clear to me for months,” Golden wrote.

“While I don’t plan to vote for him, Donald Trump is going to win. And I’m OK with that,” he added.

Golden writes in the Bangor Daily News:

This election is about the economy, not democracy. And when it comes to our economy, our Congress matters far more than who occupies the White House.

Some of Congress’ best work in recent years has happened in spite of the president, not because of him. A handful of responsible Democrats, including myself and West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin, rejected Biden’s bloated “Build Back Better” bill and instead passed a law that supercharged American energy production, saved Medicare billions of dollars and reduced the deficit. Years earlier, Congress stood up to the GOP establishment who tried to hijack Trump’s agenda to achieve their long-held goal of repealing the Affordable Care Act. Defeating them saved health coverage for tens of millions of Americans and protections for people with preexisting conditions.

It was Congress that wrote and passed the CHIPS Act and the Inflation Reduction Act to bring back manufacturing so we can once again be a nation of producers, not just consumers. We wrote laws to unleash American energy by tapping domestic natural resources — oil and gas, biomass, the sun and wind — as well as nuclear power to ensure a steady supply of affordable, reliable energy. And we passed an infrastructure law that’s already building and improving roads, bridges and ports.

In 2025, I believe Trump is going to be in the White House. Maine’s representatives will need to work with him when it benefits Mainers, hold him accountable when it does not and work independently across the aisle no matter what.

Congress will need to stand up to economic elites and so-called experts in both parties who are already working overtime to stop Trump’s proposed trade policies that would reverse the harms of globalization and protect American businesses from unfair foreign competition. We need to protect from extremists the law I helped pass that caps seniors’ insulin costs at $35 and forces Big Pharma to negotiate and lower the cost of prescription drugs.

Perhaps more importantly, members must stand up to the GOP old-guard who will use a Trump presidency as cover for handouts to the wealthy and powerful at the cost of America’s working families and communities.

The Hill reports:

Golden, like all other House lawmakers, is up for reelection this year. He will take on Maine state Rep. Austin Theriault, a Republican, in the general election this fall.

Cook Political Report, a nonpartisan index, ranks Golden’s district as a toss-up. Trump carried the district by 6 points in 2020.

His op-ed is a stark contrast to comments from Rep. Lloyd Doggett (D-Texas), who on Tuesday became the first House Democrat to publicly call on Biden to remove himself from the race.

In a post on social media platform X, Theriault said Golden’s piece was “a very phony attempt to avoid accountability.” He asked Golden if he supports Biden or not and whether he believes the president is mentally competent.

“He won’t say, because he puts politics ahead of Mainers,” Theriault said.

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