Rep. Katrina Smith says Hannah Pingree must answer for failures to Maine children and taxpayers
The Maine GOP hosted a press conference today to call attention to Hannah's hypocrisy on education and fraud.
October 9, 2026
Augusta – Rep. Katrina Smith called on Democrat gubernatorial candidate Hannah Pingree to answer for the failures that occurred while she served at the center of Governor Janet Mills’ administration and led Maine’s “Children’s Cabinet.”
Pingree served four terms in the Maine House, chaired the Health and Human Services Committee, and became speaker of the House. From 2019 until May 2025, she led the Governor’s Office of Policy Innovation and the Future, where she coordinated major policy priorities across state government.
“Hannah Pingree says she led Maine’s Children’s Cabinet, but during her time at the center of the Mills administration, children fell through the cracks, the foster-care population grew, the federal government sued Maine and our reading scores collapsed,” said Katrina Smith. “If Pingree wants credit for leading, she must also answer for what happened on her watch.”
In 2021, Maine was shaken by the deaths of four children in just 21 days. The number of children in foster care increased from 2,136 in 2019 to 2,373 in 2024, reaching nearly 2,600 at one point that year—the highest level in approximately two decades.
In 2022, during the Biden Administration, the U.S. Department of Justice found that Maine was violating federal disability law by failing to provide adequate community-based services for children with behavioral-health and developmental disabilities. After determining that the problems had not been resolved, the Justice Department sued the State of Maine in September 2024.
Maine’s educational performance also declined. Only about one-in-four Maine fourth graders is proficient in reading, and Maine experienced the nation’s largest decline in fourth-grade reading scores from 2019 to 2024.
“Hannah Pingree cannot use her years in the Mills administration as proof that she is qualified to lead Maine while refusing to take responsibility for its failures,” said Maine Republican Party Chairman Jim Deyermond. “Mainers deserve answers.”
