Angus Stanley King Jr. (born March 31, 1944) is an American lawyer and politician serving as the junior United States senator from Maine since 2013.

The general election was a highly competitive four-way race between King, Collins, Brennan, and Green Party nominee Jonathan Carter.

[14] The Washington Times described King as an idealist who "wants to slash regulations but preserve the environment; hold the line on taxes; impose work and education requirements on welfare recipients; experiment with public school choice and cut at least $60 million from the state budget.

[19] King had an approval rating of 75% going into his reelection bid in 1998,[20] which he easily won, garnering 59% of the vote and defeating Republican Jim Longley Jr. (the son of the former governor), who took 19%, and Democrat Thomas Connolly, who received 12%.

[22][23] The day after he left office in 2003, King, his wife, Mary Herman, and their two children, who were 12 and 9 at the time, embarked on a road trip in a 40 foot (12m) motor home to see America.

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

[52][53] He also endorsed Democrat Emily Cain for the Maine's second congressional district election[54] and Republican Senator Lamar Alexander of Tennessee in his reelection campaign.

[58] In the wake of the attack, King announced that he supported invoking the Twenty-fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution to remove Trump from office.

[74] 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.

[76] In 2017, King opposed the Republican tax bill, criticizing its passage on a party-line vote without hearings,[77][78] saying: "The Bangor City Council would not amend the leash law using this process.

"[78] King criticized the legislation for adding $1 trillion to the U.S. budget deficit over ten years and sought to return the bill to committee, but his proposal failed on a party-line vote.

"[79] On April 15, 2020, the Trump administration invited King to join a bipartisan task force on the reopening of the economy amid the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

Other policy proposals included tweaking the benefits formula to take into account the number of years a person has worked, and expanding the program's ability to invest in private stocks, rather than the current trust fund model.

[87] He was the only member of Congress to join a three-day U.S. 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".

"[90] King opposes the Keystone XL pipeline, saying it "will facilitate the transport of some of the world's dirtiest and most climate-harming oil through our country",[91][90] and has cast several votes against legislation authorizing its construction.

The bill creates a pilot program for the federal government to study analog, nondigital, and physical systems that can be incorporated into the power grid to mitigate the potential effects of a cyberattack.

[101] In April 2019 King was one of four senators caucusing with the Democrats who voted with Republicans to confirm David Bernhardt, an oil executive, as Secretary of the Interior Department.

[103] In July 2019, 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.

[108] 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.

"[110] In August 2018, King and 16 other lawmakers urged the Trump administration to impose sanctions under the Global Magnitsky Act against Chinese officials responsible for human rights abuses against the Uyghur Muslim minority in western China's Xinjiang region.

[111] They wrote: "The detention of as many as a million or more Uyghurs and other predominantly Muslim ethnic minorities in "political reeducation" centers or camps requires a tough, targeted, and global response.

"[112] In November 2018, 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.

[114] In December 2018, after President Trump announced the withdrawal of American troops from Syria, King was one of six senators to sign a letter expressing concern about the move and their belief "that such action at this time is a premature and costly mistake that not only threatens the safety and security of the United States, but also emboldens ISIS, Bashar al-Assad, Iran, and Russia.

"[115] In October 2019, 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 U.S.[116] King initially rejected calls for a ceasefire in the Israel–Hamas war,[117] but as the war progressed, he became increasingly critical of Israel's conduct.

"[120] After President Trump halted retaliatory air strikes against Iran after Iran downed an American surveillance drone in June 2019, King said he agreed with the decision not to carry out the strikes but expressed concern about Trump's potentially limited options after steps taken by National Security Advisor John Bolton and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

[121] 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.

[123] In 2018, King was a cosponsor of the NICS Denial Notification Act,[124] 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.

[133] In 2015, as part of the Obama administration's fiscal year 2016 budget, the United States Department of Veteran Affairs proposed congressional authorization for $6.8 million toward leasing 56,600 square feet at an unspecified location in Portland, Maine, to expand a clinic that would authorize southern Maine veterans to receive basic medical and mental health care locally.

"[145] King has voted against Republican attempts to completely defund Planned Parenthood, calling the proposals an "unfounded yet relentless assault" and "another example of misguided outrage that would only hurt those who need help the most.

The bill also gave the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) the role of evaluating and providing guidance for digital equity projects.