Patrick Jude
Elections and appointments
Personal
Contact
Patrick Jude (Republican Party) ran for election to the Maine House of Representatives to represent District 20. He lost in the general election on November 5, 2024.
Jude completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2024. Click here to read the survey answers.
Biography
Patrick Jude was born in Portland, Maine. He graduated from Ellsworth High School. He attended Clarkson and earned a bachelor's degree from the University of Maine, Orono in 1997. His career experience includes working in business.[1]
Elections
2024
See also: Maine House of Representatives elections, 2024
General election
Withdrawn or disqualified candidates
Democratic primary election
| |
|
Candidate |
% |
Total Votes |
Transfer |
Round eliminated |
| ✔ |
|
Dani O'Halloran |
|
198 |
0 |
Advanced (1) |
|
There were no incumbents in this race. The results have been certified. Source
|
Total votes: 198
|
 = candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey. |
Republican primary election
| |
|
Candidate |
% |
Total Votes |
Transfer |
Round eliminated |
| ✔ |
|
Jennifer Morin |
|
388 |
0 |
Advanced (1) |
|
There were no incumbents in this race. The results have been certified. Source
|
Total votes: 388
|
| = candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey. |
Endorsements
Ballotpedia did not identify endorsements for Jude in this election.
2024
Ballotpedia survey responses
See also: Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection
Patrick Jude completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2024. The survey questions appear in bold and are followed by Jude's responses. Candidates are asked three required questions for this survey, but they may answer additional optional questions as well.
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I am a Maine native I was born in Portland and grew up in the Ellsworth area. I graduated from Ellsworth High School in 1993 #5 in my class and participated in soccer, and indoor and outdoor track. I graduated from the University of Maine at Orono with honors in 1997 where I was a member of the Outdoor Track Team that won our conference championship in 1999, placing at our Conference Championships and New Englands all 3 years I ran, and at the ICAAAA Championships my senior year. I remain in the top ten for Javelin still. I ran a small business in Ellsworth for 20+ years. When I married my wife Jenn Morin, the current Mayor of Brewer I relocated to Brewer as well. Between us we have 5 children from 27 down to 13 and 2 grandchildren with 2 kids still in the Brewer Schools. Like so many other people I have watched our government get increasingly divided, more partisan, and more extreme. When the opportunity to run for the State House was presented to me, I was reluctant to say the least but the more I looked into it and thought on it the better I liked the idea. I talked to many of the leaders of the Maine Republican party and I expressed that if I were to run and win, that I would want to be my own person in Augusta, that I would have to be able to vote the way that my conscience and my constituents told me I needed to. To my surprise they wholeheartedly endorsed that idea and have supported me even though I firmly stated I would not be a button pusher.
- We need to get back to having a government that is working together to do what is best for the people of Maine and get rid of politicians who are just trying to win the soundbite war fought in the press. We need people who are willing to listen to opposing points of view, to learn as much as they can about all the aspects of an issue before they make snap judgements based on the blurbs they see on Facebook, TikTok or the "news" provider of their choice. We need to have people in government who look at everyone there as a colleague and teammate vs "the opposition", I believe that our government is there to look out for all of us, not just one segment of the population.
- We need to address social issues with a balanced approach. Mental health is a key part of many of these issues. We try and address homelessness, substance use disorders, crime with 1 method at a time, and treat the symptoms not the disease. If we can balance our approach to these issues with proper policing, social workers, mental health professionals, substance use counselors, each working with the other, we can make progress on these issues plaguing our state and country. Criminalizing/decriminalizing everything will not cure things, trying to force people to use resources before they are ready will not get them to the place they need to be. We have amazing resources and people out there; we just need to use them all properly.
- We need to reform our welfare system to reduce dependency on it and encourage people to improve their position in life and to get off of the system. We currently have a system that encourages people, once they get on it to stay on it, and remain where they are. There is little incentive and often disincentives to someone trying to create a better life by getting a raise, a better job, more hours, if the benefits they get are slashed by more than their increased income.
Education. We need to provide our students with an education that prepares them to enter an increasingly competitive global economy. Students need to be challenged and supported. Class sizes need to be manageable for teachers to be able to give students the attention they deserve and to keep the classroom calm and encourage learning. We need to address all levels of students and encourage them to push themselves and prepare for their lives after public schools, be that going directly into the work force, a trade school or a 2 or 4 year college program. We also need to remove the stigma for students who are planning a path that does not include college and prepare all students for life outside of a school setting.
The 2 most important things are 1) open mind combined with a willingness to listen and learn and 2) the moral fortitude to do what they feel is right for their constituency.
1)We have far too many people in the world today who listen to just one source of information and feel that they are educated on the issues facing us. People who vilify anyone whose opinions or points of view are not 100% aligned with their own and who feel they are morally superior and thus entitled to put down, insult and even threaten people who don't agree with them. We need to have people in government who actually want to talk to people with different perspectives on life and the world. They need to not only talk but most importantly LISTEN to people whose perspectives are not the same so that they can see all the aspect of the issues we face. If we have people like this in office, we have people who will work with each other to try and find solutions to our issues that make sense and work. We need to have people in office who look at their colleagues in government as all being teammates, working towards the same goal of bettering our society and world, NOT OPPONENTS.
2) Our officials need the have the backbone to stand up for what they and the people they represent want and need, even if those opinions don't line up with what other people in their party, or the special interests groups who have supported them, want to see them doing. We also need people at the top who encourage the other legislatures to speak their minds, respectfully, and who will not then penalize those members for doing what they feel is right. I think that my ability to look at and respect all sides of an issue is the first and most important. I have a desire to know as much as I can about a subject before, I decide. I want to understand as many of the variables in a situation as I can before I try to work towards a solution. If we look at only one side of an issue and fixate on a single path to solving it, we don't see the possible negative outcomes of our solution. If we can sit down with all the stake holders, hear their concerns, and their ideas, we are much more likely to produce the best answer. One that reduces the harmful results that we see from solutions that only look at one aspect of a problem or one path to solving it.
I have a strong sense of justice. I will fight for what I think is right and fair to the most people and will not let my opinion or vote be swayed just because I am told that is what I am supposed to do.
The idea of a duty to the people of Maine is one I strongly believe in. The position of a State Representative is one that involves an incredible duty to not only the people who voted for me, but for all the people of Maine. The job is to try and do the best for the State of Maine from the perspective of a citizen of Brewer. There is an obligation to work with integrity, honesty, and dedication to guide the State towards a more prosperous, safe, affordable place to live. The job title itself describes the core responsibilities of this office. If you are a Representative you need to REPRESENT the people of your constituency in doing what is best for the State of Maine. You need to get out a talk to as many people as you can on a regular basis and have groups of people who you can lean on to learn about the nuances of various issues, and not just one side of those issues. For example, Substance Use Disorders, to effectively legislate on issues relating to this you need to have the people from the recovery community who you can lean on, people from the local law enforcement community, people from the social services community. If you come at these issues from just one perspective you are not representing the people you are supposed to, you are representing one special interest and neglecting a large portion of the population your job is to be representing. You have a responsibility to be at as much as possible, to meet the commitment that you have made to the State and your own constituency. If you are not there for session, for committees, if you do not respond to colleagues and constituents when they call, email or text you are not doing your job.
I believe that the Governor and the Legislature should be teammates working together to do what is best for the State. It should not matter which party controls the Governor's Office, the Senate, or the House of Representatives; they were all elected by the citizens of Maine to do what is best for the State. The leaders of the Legislative Branch should have a professional, courteous relationship with the Governor to make sure that both the Executive and Legislative branches are working towards the same goals. Neither side should be out too "thwart" the other. That is like the center on your basketball team blocking your point guard’s shots to make sure that his/her stats are better at the end of the game, even if it means your team loses the game.
Building relationships is a vital part of this job. You need to establish and continually build on your relationships within the entire body of the legislature to be able to effectively do the job you are supposed to be doing. If legislators don't build relationships with each other, they will never be able to work together to make the changes we need to see in Maine. If they view each other as opponents instead of friends and teammates they will never be able to communicate effectively, to see another point of view on an issue and never be able to find the middle ground that most citizens want.
Education and Cultural affairs as our education system is the building blocks for everything in society
Criminal Justice and Public Safety-we need to make sure our police force is adequately trained and more importantly supported in order to properly protect us.
Inland Fisheries and Wildlife-as a life long hunter I have always loved the outdoors and have had a working relationship with many members of our Inland Fish and Wildlife department for many years as well
Health and Human Services- we need to have systems in place that protect and provide for our most vulnerable ad those who need help, but we need systems that are designed to assist when needed but also provide people with ways to help themselves. The people of Maine are the ones paying all the bills, so they deserve to have clear explanations of where their money is going and who is spending and authorizing that spending. Government should be clearly accountable to the people. Votes should be easy to see, and members should be held accountable by their constituents for how and why they vote how they do. They should also be allowed or even required to explain why they voted the way that they did. I do not believe that the weaponization of various bills with titles that imply one thing but have hidden agendas within them should be allowed. I firmly believe that comment sessions for the public should allot equal time to those for and against the bills and that remote connections should be logged, and an independent moderator should be controlling who and when people are able to speak both in person and remotely. It is incredibly biased and deceptive to allow one side of a bill to speak for 90% of the allotted time and then the opposition to have 10%, and then to have people who have waited all day to speak mysteriously lose their connection withing moments of their time, especially if they session is set to close momentarily after that (I watched that happen on an issue last spring).
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Campaign finance summary
Note: The finance data shown here comes from the disclosures required of candidates and parties. Depending on the election or state, this may represent only a portion of all the funds spent on their behalf. Satellite spending groups may or may not have expended funds related to the candidate or politician on whose page you are reading this disclaimer. Campaign finance data from elections may be incomplete. For elections to federal offices, complete data can be found at the FEC website. Click here for more on federal campaign finance law and here for more on state campaign finance law.
See also
External links
- ↑ Information submitted to Ballotpedia through the Candidate Connection survey on October 4, 2024
Leadership
Speaker of the House:Ryan Fecteau
Majority Leader:Matthew Moonen
Minority Leader:Billy Bob Faulkingham
Representatives
Democratic Party (76)
Republican Party (73)
Independent (1)
Unenrolled (1)
