Senator Angus King of Maine is that rarest of creatures in our politics today: neither a Republican nor a Democrat, but an actual, factual independent who lives and breathes and votes in accord with that affiliation. Still going strong at 81, King moved to Maine in the 1970s—where he’s since won election as the state’s governor twice and its junior senator three times. And although that number may sound paltry compared to the apparently endless tenure of his colleague Susan Collins, who is about to seek her sixth term in the upper chamber, King is by now both a senator and a Mainer through and through: a guy who can talk your ear off about the intricacies of the Big Beautiful Bill and the differences between hard shell and soft shell lobster with equal verve.