81 Facts About Angus King

Angus King won the 1994 Maine gubernatorial election as the independent candidate in a four-way race and was reelected in a landslide in 1998.

Angus King won Maine's 2012 Senate election to replace the retiring Republican Olympia Snowe and took office on January 3,2013.

Angus King was reelected to a second term in 2018, following the state's inaugural instant-runoff voting elections, and won a third term in 2024 against Republican nominee Demi Kouzounas and Democratic nominee David Costello.

Angus King is one of two independents in the Senate; the other is Bernie Sanders of Vermont, who caucuses with the Democrats.

Angus King's father was a US magistrate for the Eastern District of Virginia.

Angus King then attended the University of Virginia School of Law, graduating in 1969.

Angus King was a staff attorney for Pine Tree Legal Assistance in Skowhegan.

Angus King served as a legislative assistant to Democratic US Senator William Hathaway in the 1970s.

Angus King was well-known statewide as a host on public television.

In 1973, when he was 29, Angus King was diagnosed with an aggressive form of malignant melanoma.

Angus 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, Angus King returned to Maine to practice with Smith, Loyd and Angus King in Brunswick.

In May 1993, Angus King announced he would run for governor of Maine as an independent in the 1994 election.

Angus King abandoned his lifelong affiliation with the Maine Democratic Party.

Angus King positioned himself as a businessman and a pragmatic environmentalist focused on job creation and education.

Angus King was one of only two governors nationwide not affiliated with either of the two major parties, the other being Jesse Ventura of Minnesota, who was elected in 1998 as a member of the Reform Party.

In 2002, Angus King launched the Maine Learning Technology Initiative to provide laptops for every public middle-school student in the state, the first initiative of its kind in the nation.

Angus King was appointed a visiting lecturer at Bowdoin in 2004 and an endowed lecturer at Bates in 2009, teaching courses in American politics and political leadership at both institutions.

On March 5,2012, Angus King announced that he was running for the United States Senate seat being vacated by Olympia Snowe.

Angus King said "hogwash" to allegations by some Republicans that he had cut a deal with Democrats to keep US Rep.

Angus King said he had not ruled out caucusing with the Republicans if they took control of the Senate in 2014 United States Senate elections, but when Republicans did win the majority that year, he remained in the Democratic caucus.

On November 6,2018, Angus King was reelected, defeating Republican state Senator Eric Brakey and Democrat Zak Ringelstein.

On November 5,2024, Angus King was reelected to a third term, defeating Republican Demi Kouzounas, Democrat David Costello, and independent Jason Cherry.

Angus King supported reform of the Senate filibuster, noting that senators are no longer required to stand on the floor and speak during a filibuster.

Angus King pointed out that the Constitution contains no 60-vote requirement to conduct business in the Senate.

In 2013, Angus King voted in favor of the so-called nuclear option to eliminate the filibuster for most presidential nominees.

Angus King opposed attempts by the US House to cut $40 billion from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program over 10 years, fearing that it "would affect people in a serious way" and drive more people to soup kitchens and food banks.

Angus King supported the more modest Senate efforts to save $4 billion over the same period by closing loopholes.

In 2014, Angus King was chosen for the annual tradition of reading George Washington's Farewell Address to the Senate.

Angus King endorsed his colleague Susan Collins for reelection in the 2014 US Senate election, calling her a "model Senator".

Angus King endorsed Eliot Cutler for governor in the 2014 election, as he had in 2010, but on October 29,2014, he switched his endorsement to Democratic nominee Mike Michaud.

Angus King stated he had "never been so mad about a phone call in my entire life," after the phone call with Pence.

Angus King was participating in the certification of the 2021 United States Electoral College vote count when Trump supporters attacked the United States Capitol.

Angus King called the event a "violent insurrection" and "unspeakably sad", and blamed Trump.

Angus King was one of 19 votes in favor of a bill to block arms sales to Israel during the Gaza war.

Angus King has called himself "neither a Democrat nor a Republican, but an American".

In 2014, Angus King endorsed his Republican colleague from Maine, Susan Collins.

Angus King has called for the continuation of a tariff on imported athletic footwear, citing the potential loss of jobs at New Balance's Skowhegan and Madison factories in Maine.

Also while governor, Angus King vetoed a bill that would have raised Maine's minimum wage by 25 cents per hour.

Angus King is supportive of US manufacturers like Auburn Manufacturing, a Maine company he visited in 2022 to promote domestic manufacturing and speak out against Chinese unfair trade practices.

Angus King was the only member of Congress to join a three-day US Coast Guard fact-finding mission to Greenland in 2016, where he witnessed melting ice sheets firsthand and said that the impacts of climate change were "amazing and scary".

Nevertheless, in March 2019 Angus King joined Senate Republicans in voting against the Green New Deal.

Angus King opposes oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge on the grounds that the amount of oil is not worth the environmental risk of extracting it.

Angus King said he was "frustrated" with President Obama's delay in deciding whether to authorize construction, but that he opposed Congress legislating the approval or disapproval of a construction project.

Angus King has expressed opposition to the creation of a Maine Woods National Park.

Angus King initially expressed "serious reservations" about proposals to establish the Katahdin Woods and Waters National Monument, but expressed support for Obama's creation of the monument in 2016, saying that the administration had made commitments that convinced him that "the benefits of the designation will far outweigh any detriment"; that the monument would not hurt Maine's pulp and paper industry; and that the monument would help diversify the local economy.

Angus King opposes efforts in Maine to ban the baiting and trapping of bears, including an effort to put the question to voters in 2014, calling such practices necessary to prevent interaction between bears and people, and saying the practices are based on science and the views of experts.

In July 2019, Angus King called climate change "one of the most serious threats to" the United States, saying that two thirds of Arctic ice has disappeared over the past 30 years.

Angus King has voted to arm Syrian rebels who were fighting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and ISIL militants.

Angus King opposes the US embargo against Cuba, calling it an "antiquated" relic of the Cold War; in 2015, King introduced legislation to lift the embargo.

Angus King said that the entire committee had "no doubt whatsoever" about the Kremlin's culpability in the meddling and described the cyberattacks as "a frontal assault on our democracy" that could present a long-term threat.

In November 2018, Angus King joined Senators Chris Coons, Marco Rubio and a bipartisan group of lawmakers in sending the Trump administration a letter raising concerns about the People's Republic of China's undue influence on media outlets and academic institutions in the United States.

In late 2018, Angus King voted to withdraw US military aid for Saudi Arabia's war in Yemen.

In October 2019, Angus King was one of six senators to sign a bipartisan letter to Trump calling on him to "urge Turkey to end their offensive [in Syria] and find a way to a peaceful resolution while supporting our Kurdish partners to ensure regional stability" and arguing that to leave Syria without installing protections for American allies would endanger both them and the US.

Angus King initially rejected calls for a ceasefire in the Gaza war, but as the war progressed, he became increasingly critical of Israel's conduct.

Angus King skipped Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's address to a joint session of Congress in 2024 due to Israel's conduct in the war, and in December 2024 joined 18 other senators mostly from the Democratic Party's progressive wing in voting to block arms sales to Israel due to the number of Palestinian civilians killed in the conflict.

In March 2023, Angus King voted with a bipartisan majority to repeal the Authorization for Use of Military Force in Iraq.

In 2015, Angus King supported the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, an international agreement with Iran.

Angus King questioned the difference in US relations with Iran that year as opposed to any other in the country's history and asserted that it was "a high-stakes gamble" if the US's pressure on Iran was unsuccessful.

Angus King supports expanding background checks to most firearms transactions, with exceptions for transfers between family members, calling such a position "the single most effective step" that can be taken to keep guns out of the wrong hands.

Angus King supports limiting the size of magazines to 10 rounds, and to make purchasing a gun for someone not legally allowed to have one a federal crime.

Angus King noted that the vast majority of gun crimes are committed with handguns, not rifles.

In 2018, Angus King was a cosponsor of the NICS Denial Notification Act, legislation developed in the aftermath of the Stoneman Douglas High School shooting that would require federal authorities to inform states within a day after a person failing the National Instant Criminal Background Check System attempted to buy a firearm.

In 2022, Angus King voted for the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, a gun reform bill introduced following a deadly school shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas.

Angus King spoke out against the House Republican repeal legislation, noting that the Congressional Budget Office estimated that 14 million Americans would lose health insurance if the legislation were enacted.

Angus King is a supporter of the Children's Health Insurance Program program.

Angus King criticized Trump's 2017 budget proposal for its cuts to medical research.

In July 2019, Angus King was one of eight senators to cosponsor the Palliative Care and Hospice Education and Training Act, a bill intended to strengthen training for new and existing physicians, people who teach palliative care, and other providers who are on palliative care teams that grant patients and their families a voice in their care and treatment goals.

In October 2019, Angus King was one of 27 senators to sign a letter to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer advocating the passage of the Community Health Investment, Modernization, and Excellence Act, which was set to expire the following month.

Angus King strongly criticized President Donald Trump's Executive Order 13769, which barred the admission of refugees to the US and barred travel by nationals of several Muslim-majority countries to the country.

In 2018, Angus King introduced legislation to halt separations of immigrant families at the border.

In June 2019, Angus King was one of ten senators to cosponsor the Safe Freight Act, a bill that would require freight trains have one or more certified conductors and a certified engineer aboard who can collaborate on how to protect both the train and people living near the tracks.

Angus King signed an amicus brief to the US Supreme Court in United States v Windsor encouraging it to strike down the Defense of Marriage Act.

Additionally, Angus King voted for the Respect for Marriage Act in 2022.

In January 2025, Angus King co-sponsored the Kids Off Social Media Act, which was introduced by Senators Brian Schatz, Chris Murphy, Ted Cruz, and Katie Britt.

In March 2019, Angus King was a cosponsor of a bipartisan resolution led by Gary Peters and Jerry Moran that opposed privatization of the United States Postal Service, citing the USPS as a self-sustained establishment and noting concerns that privatization could cause higher prices and reduced services for its customers, especially in rural communities.

Angus King is the mother of King's three older sons.

Angus King is an Episcopalian and attends St Paul's Episcopal Church in Brunswick.

In June 2015, Angus King underwent a successful surgery that removed a cancerous prostate that had been detected in a screening and biopsy.

Angus King fully recovered from the virus, saying, "I didn't feel great during the worst of my illness, but I'm confident that I would have felt a whole lot worse if I hadn't received the vaccine".

In 2024, King received the 24th Bruce F Vento Public Service Award from the National Park Trust.