Ed Thelander
Ed Thelander (Republican Party) ran for election to the U.S. House to represent Maine's 1st Congressional District. He lost in the general election on November 8, 2022.
Thelander completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2022. Click here to read the survey answers.
Elections
2022
See also: Maine's 1st Congressional District election, 2022
General election
General election for U.S. House Maine District 1
The ranked-choice voting election was won by Chellie Pingree in round 1 .
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Total votes: 349,176 |
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Democratic primary election
Democratic Primary for U.S. House Maine District 1
The following candidates advanced in the ranked-choice voting election: Chellie Pingree in round 1 .
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Total votes: 43,007 |
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Withdrawn or disqualified candidates
- Aaron Amede (D)
Republican primary election
Republican Primary for U.S. House Maine District 1
The following candidates advanced in the ranked-choice voting election: Ed Thelander in round 1 .
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Total votes: 22,346 |
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Campaign themes
2022
Ballotpedia survey responses
See also: Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection
Ed Thelander completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2022. The survey questions appear in bold and are followed by Thelander's responses. Candidates are asked three required questions for this survey, but they may answer additional optional questions as well.
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A decorated combat veteran with 21 years of experience as a Navy SEAL, Ed participated in U.S. operations in Afghanistan, Kosovo, Central and South America, Southeast Asia, and the Caribbean. An expert in special operations, he has helped lead many of the Navy’s specialized training programs.
Now Ed is ready to serve in Congress, and determined to take on the pressing challenges facing our beloved country. He’ll fight for us, like he always has, and he will always do what’s right.
- Border Security/Immigration: What’s happening on the border a crisis. In addition to illegal immigration, human and narcotic trafficking across our southern border is out of control and puts all Americans at risk.
- National Debt/Responsible Spending: Spending by politicians on both sides of the aisle is at record levels and they are racking up new debts every day that our children and grandchildren will have to bear. As the national debt surpasses the $30 trillion mark, hardly anyone in Congress seems concerned.
- Education: Let’s teach the fundamentals. Many schools are failing at the most basic level; teaching reading, writing and arithmetic. Let’s encourage our young people to learn the trades. parents should be able to choose where their kids go to school. School choice encourages competition, and competition encourages excellence.
Note: Ballotpedia reserves the right to edit Candidate Connection survey responses. Any edits made by Ballotpedia will be clearly marked with [brackets] for the public. If the candidate disagrees with an edit, he or she may request the full removal of the survey response from Ballotpedia.org. Ballotpedia does not edit or correct typographical errors unless the candidate's campaign requests it.
Campaign website
Thelander's campaign website stated the following:
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Border Security/Immigration What’s happening on the border is a crisis. In addition to illegal immigration, human and narcotics trafficking across our southern border is out of control and puts all Americans at risk. People are paying traffickers three to nine times as much to enter America illegally because we are not doing the hard work of fixing our broken border and immigration system. The current administration is doing nothing, and we need people with integrity capable of making difficult decisions in Congress to put the pressure on them to make America’s borders safe again. Ours is a country of immigrants and we are strengthened every time a new American joins us, through the legal process.
Spending by politicians on both sides of the aisle is at record levels and they are racking up new debts every day that our children and grandchildren will have to bear. As the national debt surpasses the $30 trillion mark, hardly anyone in Congress seems concerned. Congress, right now, is looking to increase the tax burden on hard-working Americans from $2.5 to $6 trillion. There is never an ideal time for new taxes, especially in the middle of a struggling economy. This would be a disaster like none we have seen before. We need to rein in out-of-control spending, and get the ship of state back on course.
Let’s teach the fundamentals. Many schools are failing at the most basic level; teaching reading, writing, and arithmetic. Let’s encourage our young people to learn the trades. Let’s also teach true, unrevised history. Our founders created the greatest, freest, most prosperous and generous country in the world. Historically, when we made mistakes, we put our hearts and our minds into fixing them — and our children need to be taught this, beginning in kindergarten. Instead, our children are being taught to doubt America’s greatness, that America is an institutionally racist nation. Nothing could be further from the truth. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. famously stated that a person’s skin color should be the last thing we notice, and the Bible teaches us that there is only one race, the human race. America has made great strides in discouraging discrimination, in all areas of government, education, economy, and society. Reverting to teaching one ‘race’ should be favored above another is the wrong direction. Lastly, parents should be able to choose where their kids go to school. School choice encourages competition, and competition encourages excellence. School choice would encourage us all to do the best we can.
When it comes to the economy, the government needs to follow the same rule doctors follow when tending to our health: First, do no harm. But inflationary spending is doing plenty of harm, and to those who can least afford it. During the Covid crisis, state and federal governments used taxpayer money to pay people to stay home. This made it hard for small businesses, and in too many cases, people had to close the doors of family businesses that had lasted generations. Meanwhile, a tidal wave of new regulations threatens jobs across the state and nation. For example, a recent decision by the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration to shut down nearly 1,000 square miles of lobster fishing waters suggests the federal government is trying to push Maine out of the lobster industry. Be it farming, fishing, or forestry, onerous government regulations have burdened these traditional Maine industries for far too long. We need a fighter for the Maine economy in Washington D.C.
Soviet tyrant Josef Stalin once said, “It doesn’t matter who votes; what matters is who counts the votes.” Too many people today are questioning the integrity of the system, and we need to do something about it. In 2016, a large majority of Democrats believed the election was stolen. In 2020, a majority of Republicans believed the election was stolen. We simply cannot continue to have disputed elections and expect America to survive. Ensuring election integrity should not be difficult. We simply need the political will to do it. Our electoral system needs to be beyond reproach. I will fight for measures to guarantee one person, one vote, and real accountability for absentee ballots. In a fair system, we all agree on the rules. It helps when they are rooted in common sense.[1] |
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| —Ed Thelander's campaign website (2022)[2] | ||
See also
2022 Elections
External links
Footnotes
- ↑ Note: This text is quoted verbatim from the original source. Any inconsistencies are attributable to the original source.
- ↑ Ed Thelander for Congress, “Current Issues,” accessed August 27, 2022
