At his Auburn Mall event, Bobby Charles wanted to be challenged. Here’s how it went.
Margaret Rinaldi speaks with Republican gubernatorial candidate Bobby Charles about women's reproductive rights during a meet-and-greet Thursday in Auburn. (Anna Chadwick/Staff Photographer)
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AUBURN — Many of those who gathered at the Auburn Mall on Thursday evening wore red shirts with Bobby Charles’ name on the front.
But the campaign stop for the Republican governor nominee wasn’t a rally — it was an invitation for open debate with Charles.
Several attendees did, in face-to-face, one-on-one conversations.
It was an event clearly crafted in the style of Jubilee’s widely watched “Surrounded” series — a made-for-social media production, with audience members voting out fellow question-askers with raised red flags if, after a few minutes of debate, their arguments didn’t land quite well enough.
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In practice, though, Charles went on minuteslong monologues, often taking detours from questions to draw applause from the friendly crowd with comments like “and we will not have boys in girls’ sports” in response to questions about community college funding. Many of the conversations were friendly to Charles’ politics — including the final conversation, between Charles and Maine Wire personality Jon Fetherston.
Some of the conversations, though, shed some interesting light. Here were three of the most telling chats from the event.
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THE ONE-ISSUE VOTER
The third person to step up, Margaret Rinaldi, of Wales, told Charles she had a miscarriage the morning of the release of the 2022 Dobbs v. Jackson U.S. Supreme Court decision — the one that overturned Roe v. Wade and returned control of abortion restrictions to the states.
Rinaldi said she had a second miscarriage recently and told Charles she was a “one-issue voter,” and that reproductive rights were her one issue.
Margaret Rinaldi asks Republican gubernatorial candidate Bobby Charles about women’s reproductive rights during a meet-and-greet Thursday in Auburn. (Anna Chadwick/Staff Photographer) Purchase this image
“This is what Maine needs,” Charles said. “This is an earnest, honest, heartfelt conversation about something that matters.”
Charles reiterated his position that late-term abortion — which he declined to define — was unacceptable. And he said he would support exceptions to that rule if the life of the mother was in danger, or in cases of rape or incest.
And then he continued on a several-minutes-long speech about lagging state reimbursements for hospitals, which he said have caused the closure of birthing centers across the state under Gov. Janet Mills, a Democrat he’s often linked with his opponent, Hannah Pingree.
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Eventually, he got to the topic of recruiting healthcare professionals to the state. In doing so, he said he wants to forgive the student loans of nurses as one way to attract them to stay in Maine. An interesting exchange followed.
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“You’re going to do that even though (President Donald) Trump says they’re not professional degrees?” Rinaldi asked, referring to a provision of the president’s signature legislation last year that capped student loans for certain degrees, including nursing.
“I really don’t care what Trump says,” Charles responded.
“This is the first time I’ve heard you not glaze him, and I’m very, very appreciative of that,” Rinaldi said.
TACKLING RACISM
Emily Angela, 29, lives in Lewiston and works at Central Maine Medical Center. As a Black woman, she said she has been a victim of racism regularly in Maine — in personal relationships, in looks at the grocery store and in her workplace.
In a state that’s nearly all-white, she said, the R next to Charles’ name carries with it a reputation for being insensitive, or worse, openly racist.
“How can I know, when I go and vote, that you will stand up to racism and that Black people in the state, even though there aren’t many of us, we can look at Bobby Charles and say, ‘Hey, he has our back?'” Angela asked.
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Emily Angela, 29, of Lewiston, discusses racism issues with Republican gubernatorial candidate Bobby Charles during a meet-and-greet Thursday in Auburn. (Anna Chadwick/Staff Photographer) Purchase this image
Charles decried race-based attacks in his lengthy response, and said there is “no basis, ever, ever, ever, for racism in the state of Maine.”
“I think we could do a lot better when it comes to this issue,” Charles said. “Here you are, a wonderful contributor to the community, just like probably all the people here. And you’re saying, ‘Treat me fairly. Treat me justly. Treat me kindly. Because I’m exactly like you.'”
The conversation, which Charles again dominated, ended with a hug on stage.
The very next debater up, a Charles supporter, asked Charles about fraud in Maine, which state Republicans have largely pinned on “New Mainers” or Somali immigrants — a group at the center of racial tensions in Lewiston, especially.
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FLAGS UP
Stacy Dostie, a 60-year-old independent from Sabattus, was the only debater to be flagged off her perch by the crowd.
Dostie, perhaps not coincidentally, also pushed back hardest of anyone against Charles.
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Dostie challenged something Charles had said earlier in the night — that he hoped to dismantle Maine’s departments of Education and Health and Human Services to find fraud and eliminate inefficiencies.
“Now, that is out of the Trump playbook,” Dostie said. “That’s what he’s trying to do. And, in my opinion, it isn’t working very well.”
Attendees wave red flags to signal that they want the next person to speak with Republican gubernatorial candidate Bobby Charles Thursday in Auburn. (Anna Chadwick/Staff Photographer) Purchase this image
Charles, who had previously said Dostie was “exactly the kind of person I want in that chair,” answered by recounting his time in the federal government, working under former Secretary of State Colin Powell, who had assigned him to find efficiencies in diplomatic work all over the world, Charles said. He said he would find experts to help better understand where those cuts could be made most efficiently.
Eventually, Dostie interrupted. And after further discussion on community college, she interrupted again.
“You’re talking about putting a lot of commissions together and a lot of committees to look at things,” she said. “What about action?”
“I will be measured by action,” Charles responded.
A few minutes later, Dostie was voted off the stage by the audience.
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Tagged: auburn mall, bobby charles, election 2026, maine politics
Ethan reports on cost of living for the Portland Press Herald. Before he joined in mid-2026, he covered local news in Augusta and surrounding areas and ran a weekly newsletter for the Kennebec Journal. More by Ethan Horton
