Maine police are seeing an increase in reported threats against state lawmakers that comes amid a similar rise nationally and concerns about escalating political violence.

Reported threats have more than tripled since 2023, when Maine Capitol Police received 23 reports of threats against lawmakers, according to data provided in response to a Freedom of Access Act request. In 2024, 53 threats were reported, and 75 reports have been made as of mid-September this year.

The Press Herald requested data going back to 2020 but was told it would take longer to compile because of a change in the way Capitol Police track threats.

Maine Department of Public Safety spokesperson Shannon Moss said in an email Thursday that the increase was noteworthy. She said Capitol Police work with law enforcement at other state capitols as well as other federal, state and local authorities in investigating and mitigating such threats.

She did not provide a specific number on how many reported threats lead to charges and prosecutions, but noted that one recent case was successfully investigated and prosecuted by the U.S. Attorney’s Office and the FBI, resulting in a guilty plea by an Illinois man in federal court in June.

Concerns about political violence in the U.S. have been especially heightened following the June murder of Democratic Minnesota lawmaker Melissa Hortman and her husband and the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk earlier this month.

And Maine is not alone in reporting an increase in threats.

U.S. Capitol Police investigated 9,474 “concerning statements and direct threats” against members of Congress last year, the highest number since 2021, when the Capitol was attacked by Donald Trump’s supporters following his defeat in the 2020 presidential election.

Those numbers dropped in 2022, but have risen again in the last two years, according to an annual threat assessment the department released this year. The report also noted that threats usually increase during election years.

In one high-profile case in Maine this year, House Speaker Ryan Fecteau, D-Biddeford, was the subject of a bomb threat the day after Kirk was shot and killed in Utah.

Summaries of other reports made to police this year in Maine that were provided through the records request list emails, messages and social media commentaries that lawmakers and others reported because they had deemed them threatening or concerning. Most do not go into details about what specifically the messages and posts said.

In one case, a Skowhegan police officer called Capitol Police to let them know they had received a report from a DHHS caseworker who was on the phone with someone and could hear another individual in the background saying they were upset about a flag at the local courthouse “and he was going there with knives and also going to the Capitol in Augusta.”

In another case, police were made aware of a YouTube video that included a song with the lyrics “all I want to do” followed by gun shots and photos of two Democratic lawmakers.

A Republican lawmaker also reported an email that she and others had received in which there were “no direct threats” but that included the statement, “as you all know from school books; the loser gets raped and annihilated E.T. every time.”

Fecteau, who as speaker is one of the most prominent politicians in Augusta, is named in more than a dozen of the reported threats this year. In response to a request for an interview Thursday, a spokesperson pointed a reporter to a written statement he issued following the Sept. 11 bomb threat.

“The division in our nation is worsening, with a growing tendency to equate party affiliation or policy positions with inherent evil,” the statement said in part. “We must find ways to get to know each other not through the lens of politics or ideologies but as neighbors, as Mainers, as Americans.”

Senate President Mattie Daughtry, D-Brunswick, who was named in three reported threats this year, was not available for an interview Thursday, a spokesperson said.

Assistant House Minority Leader Katrina Smith, R-Palermo, who was named in four reports, said in an interview Thursday that she had a recurring issue with a local resident who left her a concerning voicemail and then followed up with similar emails, sometimes copying others.

Smith said the resident was upset with her stance against allowing transgender athletes to participate in girls sports, a topic of major debate in the last legislative session.

“Did he say, ‘I’m going to kill you?’ No,” Smith said. “But the words used were not the typical words used when you’re just angry.”

Smith said she doesn’t assume every angry email is a death threat, but it can be hard to not worry when political tensions nationally are heightened. She said police could be more proactive in responding to the people who make threats and in communicating to lawmakers when an issue arises.

“I try not to think I’m special as a politician, but I think with the things we’ve seen over the past year, some of this warrants a phone call to the person to say, ‘Let’s back it down a little,’ and I don’t feel like that’s happened on some occasions,” she said.

Moss said Thursday that police don’t publicly discuss safety plans for the State House or other locations. But state officials have taken steps in recent years to improve security measures for lawmakers and state workers.

Home addresses for Maine Senate and House members and candidates were taken off the Legislature’s and the secretary of state’s websites in June. The removals came just days after a shooter killed Minnesota state Rep. Hortman and her husband, Mark, and seriously wounded state Sen. John Hoffman and his wife, Yvette, at their homes.

Security upgrades are also in the works at the State House, adjacent Burton M. Cross Office Building and at the governor’s residence, the Blaine House, that were planned prior to the incidents in Minnesota and Utah.