David Costello

Office Sought: United States Senate

District: All

Towns Served: All

About David Costello

David was born in Bangor and raised in Old Town by his mother Gail and maternal grandparents, Pauline and Alfred Baillargeon. David’s father John, an Army veteran and AFL-CIO organizer, died in 1968 at the age of thirty-one due to hazardous work he had done as a teenager.

The grandson of French and Irish American shoe, textile, and railroad workers. David, like many in Maine, was the first in his family to attend a four-year college and to earn a bachelor’s degree and a master’s degree – having worked his way through the University of Maine, George Washington University, and London School of Economics.

David has more than twenty-five years of senior-level state, local, and federal government and non-government organization experience. Having served as a top aide to Maine’s Secretary of State, the Mayor of Baltimore, and Governor of Maryland.  And having served as a county program manager and regional team leader for the United States Agency for International Development (USAID-OTI), responding to political, humanitarian, and economic crises in conflict-torn Cambodia, Haiti, Bosnia, Croatia, Serbia, Montenegro, Kosovo, Macedonia, and Albania. 

Most recently, David directed two non-governmental climate action projects in Maryland and served as an interim climate and clean energy program director at the Natural Resources Council of Maine (NRCM). David resides in Brunswick with his wife Sally and beagle Stella. His two oldest children (Sam and Tom) live and work in Maryland, and his two youngest (Grace and Jack) are attending college out of state.

Platform Issues:

• Strengthen our democracy by:
  • Banning gerrymandering and publicly financing federal candidates.
  • Abolishing the Electoral College.
  • Term limiting federal judges, including Supreme Court justices.
• Guarantee healthcare and retirement security by:
  • Offering Medicare to all who want it.
  • Eliminating the FICA tax cap and expanding benefits to low-income retirees.
• Broden economic prosperity by:
  • Raising the minimum wage to a living wage.
  • Backing unions.
  • Expanding the EITC.
  • Boosting infrastructure investments.
  • Increasing taxes on the wealthy.
  • Expanding childcare and affordable housing assistance.
• Protect our planet and environment by:
  • Implementing a national climate action plan that includes strict emissions caps and ambitious “draw down” actions.
  • Enacting smarter development laws.
  • Implementing a national Zero Waste plan.
• Enhance civil, women’s reproductive, and LGBTQ rights by:
  • Codifying Roe and funding organizations like Planned Parenthood.
  • Ratifying the ERA and broadening civil rights protections for ALL Americans.
• Build-on recent gun safety regulations by enacting stricter national laws.
• Strengthen international relations and security by:
  • Prioritizing nuclear and conventional arms controls.
  • Rebuilding America’s foreign policy and aid agencies.
  • Enacting comprehensive immigration reforms globally.
  • Negotiating fair and comprehensive trade agreements.

Priorities in Office

• Mitigate the Trump Administration’s assault on our democracy, environment and economy and repair the considerable damage already done by revising agency rules, laws, and budgets.
• Enact reforms ensuring that ALL Americans, not just the wealthy, have the education, housing, healthcare, and other life-enriching resources to thrive. 
• Advance long-overdue reforms to substantially upgrade our outdated governing practices and institutions and eliminate the excessive and corrupting influence that money, wealth and disinformation have over our politics and government.
• End the corruption and authoritarian practices of the Trump Administration by vigorously investigating, exposing and impeaching (if necessary) Administration bad actors.