Angus King

Angus King

Angus Stanley King Jr. is an American politician and attorney serving as the junior United States Senator from Maine. A political independent since 1993, he was the 72nd Governor of Maine from 1995 to 2003. King won Maine’s 2012 Senate election to replace the retiring Republican Olympia Snowe and took office on January 3, 2013. He was reelected to a second term in 2018, following the state’s inaugural instant-runoff voting elections.

About Angus King in brief

Summary Angus KingAngus Stanley King Jr. is an American politician and attorney serving as the junior United States Senator from Maine since 2013. A political independent since 1993, he was the 72nd Governor of Maine from 1995 to 2003. King won Maine’s 2012 Senate election to replace the retiring Republican Olympia Snowe and took office on January 3, 2013. He was reelected to a second term in 2018, following the state’s inaugural instant-runoff voting elections. For committee assignment purposes, he caucuses with the Democratic Party. He is one of two independents currently serving in the Senate, the other being Bernie Sanders of Vermont. King was born in Alexandria, Virginia, the son of Ellen Archer and Angus Stanley King, a lawyer. He attended Dartmouth College, earning his B. A. in 1966. He then attended the University of Virginia School of Law, graduating in 1969. In 1973, when he was 29, King was diagnosed with an aggressive form of malignant melanoma. King has said he believes he survived cancer only because he had health insurance, and has highlighted this experience when explaining his support for the Affordable Care Act. In 1975 King returned to Maine to practice with Smith, Loyd and King in Brunswick. In 1983 he was appointed vice president of Swift RiverHafslund Company, which developed alternative energy projects in New England. In 1989 King founded Northeast Energy Management, Inc., a company that developed and operated electrical energy conservation projects. In 1994 he sold the company.

As of 2012 King’s investments were valued at between USD 4. 8 million and USD 22. 5 million. In May 1993 King announced he would run for governor of Maine as an independent. Incumbent Governor John McKernan, a Republican, was term-limited and could not seek another term. King abandoned his lifelong affiliation with the Maine Democratic Party and became an independent in 1998. During his tenure as governor King was the last time a political party had won a majority of the vote, and the only time he was unaffiliated with any political party. In 1998, King’s reelection to aSecond term in 1998, he defeated Republican Jim Longley Jr. with 59% of the votes. In 2002, King narrowly won the November 8 election with 35% of vote to Brennan’s 34%, a margin of just 7,878 votes. The Republican nominee was Susan Collins, Commissioner of Professional and Financial Regulation under Governor JohnMcKernan and a protégée of U.S. Senator William Cohen, and at the time relatively unknown to the electorate. The general election was a highly competitive four-way race between King, Collins, Brennan, and Green Party nominee Jonathan Carter. Collins received 23% of vote and Carter won eight counties, Collins five counties, and Brennan three. King’s election as independent was not unprecedented in Maine politics, as independent elections were held 20 years earlier earlier. In 2008, King won reelection to the second term of the Republican James B. Longley.