Maine GOP candidate pushes Sandy Hook, QAnon conspiracies — and that's just for starters

A Republican legislative candidate who has amplified the global QAnon conspiracy movement, shares memes comparing President Joe Biden to Nazis, and has said she still has questions about the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, stands by her belief that people can say and believe what they want.

Wendy Lee MacDowell is running against incumbent Democrat William Bridgeo for House District 60, which covers part of Augusta, in the November general election. Though both candidates were uncontested in the primary election, MacDowell said she believes voters should have choices and no candidate should run unopposed.

Conspiracy theories are not new in American politics, but whether a candidate holds such beliefs is “very much worth paying attention to,” said Mark Brewer, professor and chair of the political science department at the University of Maine. Some conspiracy theories are more concerning than others, Brewer said, but in general, they can indicate a lack of trust in government institutions or show that a candidate is willing to support claims not supported by facts.

On its face, a traditional race

Bridgeo served as Augusta city manager for nearly 25 years and described his politics as “moderate progressiveness.” He’s running to advance what he sees as practical solutions to the issues that affect and concern those living in House District 60. As he prepares to knock on doors and talk to voters over the next few months, he said he hopes to gather more feedback about what those issues are.

Bridgeo said he is eager to tell constituents about the progress he made for their corner of Augusta in his first term as representative. For example, he helped in the transfer of ownership of local sports fields from the state to a local nonprofit and co-sponsored a bill to help clean up Togus Pond.

Describing herself as a “constitutional conservative,” MacDowell said she doesn’t feel the Maine Legislature is truly representative of the people and that lawmakers are listening. She said individuals know how to run their lives better than the government, which should follow the rules outlined in the Constitution.

MacDowell said her top issues are energy — especially increased costs to ratepayers — the economy and mental health, with a focus on support for senior citizens. She lamented the closure of nursing homes in recent years and said there should be better infrastructure to find housing and “treatment on demand” for people in mental health crises.

House District 60, which leans Democratic, covers the eastern portion of Augusta. In 2022, Bridgeo beat Republican candidate William Clardy 58% to 39%.

March data from the Department of the Secretary of State shows that about 37% of voters in the district are registered Democrats, 30% are Republicans and about 28% of voters aren’t enrolled in a party.

MacDowell questions Sandy Hook shooting

In an interview with Maine Morning Star, MacDowell said she still has questions about the 2012 shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, when 20 first graders and six educators were shot and killed.

In June 2021, Sandy Hook Promise, a gun violence prevention group that was formed by some of the families of the victims, shared a petition calling for action to prevent school shootings. MacDowell replied in the comments of the post, “Never happened. That building had been abandoned for years,” repeating a false conspiracy spread by extremist websites.

Although the post was made a few years ago, MacDowell told Maine Morning Star that while she thinks the shooting “probably did happen,” she said she’s “not sure that it happened the way they said it did.”

MacDowell claimed she previously saw facility records that led her to believe the building was closed for multiple years before the shooting, though she said she could no longer find those records.

When people are running for public office, the statements they make and share publicly are elevated, said Jamie McKown, a professor of government and politics at the College of the Atlantic in Bar Harbor.

On one hand, there’s value in people asking questions of the dominant narrative, McKown said. However, there comes a point when the questioning can become “problematic.” Though there can be misinformation in the early reports after a traumatic event, McKown said that is typically questioned and corrected as more information becomes available.

Repeating falsehoods about the Sandy Hook shooting has gotten some in deep water.

Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones has been ordered to pay $1.5 billion in defamation damages to the families of many of the Sandy Hook victims. In three separate lawsuits, Jones was accused of using his platform InfoWars to spread the idea the shooting was a hoax. Last week, a judge ordered the liquidation of his assets to help pay for the damages.

When asked about MacDowell’s post, Bridgeo said the Sandy Hook shooting was “one of the most tragic incidents of gun violence that has ever occurred in this country.”

MacDowell said she does not have similar questions about the October mass shooting in Lewiston because she said the investigative body commissioned to study the facts of the shooting has done a thorough job.

The push for gun safety reform shaped much of the last legislative session after lawmakers vowed to take action to ensure that such a tragedy would never happen again. Democrats introduced five bills, with two ultimately signed into law — a 72-hour waiting period for certain firearm purchases and a multi-pronged public safety measure introduced by Gov. Janet Mills that expands background checks and bolsters the state’s existing yellow flag law.

MacDowell testified before the Legislature’s Judiciary Committee against a failed red flag proposal that would have provided another way to temporarily confiscate weapons from a person deemed to be a threat to themself or others. She argued the bill failed to provide due process.

Bridgeo said that he supports reasonable gun safety measures and is up front about his belief that assault weapons should be banned.

During the session, Bridgeo supported both new laws as well as a bill Mills vetoed that would have banned conversion devices, like bump stocks. Bridgeo also supported a proposal for a task force to study the voluntary waiver of an individual’s right to purchase a firearm, but that study was not funded before adjournment.

Support for QAnon

MacDowell has also signaled her adherence to QAnon, the online conspiracy theory turned political movement that claims former President Donald Trump is fighting a secret, satanic cult of world leaders. Many of the rioters who stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021 have said they are supporters of QAnon theories.

In a video on X she posted in June 2020, MacDowell recites an oath to defend the U.S. Constitution. Her post included #WWG1WGAWW #taketheoath #digitalwarrior #QAnon hashtags with the abbreviation for the QAnon slogan, “Where we go one, we go all.”

MacDowell said the phrase is meant to convey that people are stronger together. She told Maine Morning Star it can be attributed to President John F. Kennedy, but multiple reports from the Encyclopedia Britannica, Los Angeles Times and CBS News have found that to be a misattribution of a line that came from the 1996 movie “White Squall.”

When asked if she believes if QAnon is a conspiracy theory, MacDowell said, “it’s just some guy on the internet.”

MacDowell said that sometimes the person posting as Q is “a nut,” and sometimes they are right. But she said in a democracy people have the right to say anything they want — “I would die defending that right,” MacDowell said.

“Do I think that Nazis should be able to stand in front of the courthouse and say whatever they want and wave their flags? Yes,” MacDowell said. “Can Christians do that? Can Jews do that? Can Palestines [sic] do that? Can gay people do that? Everybody could do that. That’s what the First Amendment guarantees us.”

Brewer from the University of Maine said these claims can have downstream harms.

While QAnon starts with someone posting on the internet, which is protected by the First Amendment, “where it becomes more harmful — or not harmless — is the implications,” Brewer said.

For example, in May 2022 the New York Times reported that QAnon supporters intercepted migrant children at the southern border with Mexico to collect information on their families because of their belief that the children were falling victim to sex-trafficking rings — a common theme among QAnon claims.

“In almost all instances, it’s the downstream implications of the conspiracy theory rather than the theory itself,” Brewer said.

When asked, MacDowell said she does see limitations to the First Amendment. For example, she said people “shouldn’t be able to run in here and yell ‘fire’ or whatever because that’s infringing on my rights to be in peace.”

Maine Morning Star is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Maine Morning Star maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Lauren McCauley for questions: info@mainemorningstar.com. Follow Maine Morning Star on Facebook and X.