Vice President J.D. Vance is taking his anti-fraud message to the campaign trail, saying he needs voters to elect Republicans who will help him and the Trump administration root out government waste and save taxpayer dollars.
Mr. Vance, who chairs the White House Task Force to Eliminate Fraud, made combating fraud the centerpiece of his pitch Monday to Maine voters to elect Republican Paul LePage to an open U.S. House seat this fall.
Speaking at a rally in Brewer, Maine, the vice president said Mr. LePage during his tenure as Maine’s governor from 2011 to 2019 cracked down on a welfare fraud epidemic and doubled the number of state fraud investigators.
“Meanwhile, the current group of jokers running the state of Maine, they have doubled down on fraud,” Mr. Vance said. “They have doubled down on stealing your tax dollars and giving it to people who shouldn’t deserve it. They doubled down on making it harder to find and catch and prosecute the fraudsters.”
He said those failures are due in large part to state auditor Matthew Dunlap, the Democratic candidate running against Mr. LePage for the seat in Maine’s 2nd district.
Four-term Democratic Rep. Jared Golden is retiring, and Republicans believe Mr. LePage is well-positioned to beat Mr. Dunlap and flip the seat.
“Call it old-fashioned common sense, but if you want somebody managing your money, maybe they ought to actually meet the constitutional requirements to do the job,” Mr. Vance said.
He was referring to Mr. Dunlap having to step down as state auditor in 2021 because he failed two exams needed to become a certified public accountant within the state’s mandated nine-month, post-election window.
Mr. Dunlap was reappointed state auditor a year later after passing the exams.
As state auditor, Mr. Dunlap has turned Maine “into one of the fraud capitals of the United States of America,” Mr. Vance said.
He suggested voters in the state tell Mr. Dunlap: “You’re fired, not promoted to the United States Congress.”
“If you’re fighting for the people of Maine, for the food stamps, for the people who actually deserve them, and not for the fraudsters, we’ve got to send Paul LePage to Congress,” Mr. Vance said.
The Washington Times reached out to the Dunlap campaign for comment on the vice president’s attacks.
Mr. LePage, who spoke at the rally ahead of Mr. Vance, only mentioned fraud once in his remarks.
“We reformed welfare and cracked down on fraud,” he said, referring to his eight years as governor. “However, the attorney general at the time, now governor [Democrat Janet Mills], refused to prosecute any fraud cases in the state of Maine.”
Mr. Dunlap had posted on social media ahead of the GOP rally that Mr. LePage’s claims of having a direct line to the administration have done nothing to stop affordability issues that impact Mainers, such as increasing tariffs on Canada.
“Even with [Mr. Vance] in town, things in Maine keep getting worse thanks to Washington,” he said.
Mr. LePage did not address the trade dispute with Canada in his remarks, focusing instead on his record as governor and plans to help Maine workers.
He welcomed Mr. Vance but did not tout his closeness with the administration, instead pledging to be an independent voice in Washington.
“I don’t go along to get along,” Mr. LePage said. “I always put Maine first, not politics, not relationships. If it’s good for Maine, I will work with anyone and everyone to make it happen, even Bernie Sanders. If it’s bad for Maine, I will fight like hell to kill it.”
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