Donald Trump trusts his own children to help run his business empire, so maybe it shouldn’t be surprising that he decided to hire Maine Governor Paul LePage’s daughter to help his campaign win the Pine Tree State.
The Maine Republican Party announced that Lauren LePage will serve as the Trump campaign’s coalitions director. This is not her first job in politics. The third-year University of Maine law student also headed up a political non-profit and worked for her father. The campaign also announced a deputy state director, meaning the campaign now has three staffers in the state.
Lauren isn’t the only LePage to get an interesting job this summer. The first lady is working as a waitress in Boothbay Harbor.
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Trump has tried to turn Maine into a presidential campaign battleground. Maine and Nebraska are the only two states that award electoral votes by congressional district as well as by the statewide vote. While Trump is behind statewide, he is hoping to win a single electoral vote in the state’s 2nd Congressional District. That district, which includes Downeast Maine and Bangor, is currently represented by a Republican in Congress.
The Democrats, not surprisingly, appeared unimpressed with Trump’s new employee.
“Regardless of his staffing choices, Donald Trump has a disastrous economic plan that would result in the loss of 3.5 million American jobs — which could mean 14,000 in Maine alone,” said Maine Democratic Party Chairman Phil Bartlett. “Meanwhile, Hillary Clinton has laid out a forward thinking plan that includes the largest investment in good-paying jobs since World War II, one that could mean 43,000 new jobs in Maine.”
James Pindell can be reached at james.pindell@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @jamespindell or subscribe to his daily e-mail update on the 2016 campaign at www.bostonglobe.com/groundgame