Nearly a year of campaigning and debate in Maine came to a sudden close on Tuesday, in an election that saw big gains for Democrats, who held the Blaine House, Legislature and seemingly both of the state’s two congressional districts.
Our reporters in the field across Maine saw how politicians and their supporters created an unforgettable Election Day.
Dejected LePage supporters left early or gathered at the bar.
A few dozen people gathered at the watch party for former Gov. Paul LePage in Lewiston shortly after polls closed. What began as a joyful night would eventually turn into anger and scorn as devotees saw their candidate rejected by the electorate.
A host of younger supporters got drinks at the bar. Their breath smelled of beer by the end of the night as they twirled LePage signs and egged on journalists to take photos as results came in showing their candidate was losing. Some voiced baseless allegations of voter fraud.
Pam Miller, 68, a former crisis intervention worker, said she was a regular at local school board meetings fighting what she sees as inappropriate lessons in the classroom. Miller had gun-rights buttons on as well as a sheriff’s badge signaling work against voter fraud. She said she staked out the polls in Nobleboro from a parking lot earlier in the day. She found nothing.
A man who wore an explicit shirt denigrating Gov. Janet Mills said the results were disappointing. They were also hard for him to trust, especially after a 2020 election he falsely believed was stolen from former President Donald Trump.
LePage walked into the room to a hero’s welcome, but after he said “the election doesn’t look very well,” his supporters were dejected. Attendees left en masse and some voiced skepticism about the outcome. Others who had drank heavily at the bar began shouting vulgar statements in an effort to disrupt broadcasts by TV journalists. One woman who had wept as LePage spoke screamed expletives at a reporter who had interviewed her.
LePage walked out without taking questions. He and his wife, Ann, looked solemn as they left the building with staff.
Mills got a call from a former governor. Not that one.
The mood at Mills’ election night party at Aura, a music venue in downtown Portland, never once hinted at a chance the governor could lose. An energetic crowd of supporters looked to already be in celebration mode by the time Mills emerged around 9:30 p.m., smiling hard and bobbing onto a blue-lit dance floor surrounded by her grandkids.
As midnight approached, her win looked all but guaranteed. President Joe Biden had called to congratulate. Dancers on a packed floor held up campaign signs in anticipation of Mills declaring victory.
When the governor finally took the stage around 11:50 p.m., she threw both arms up in the air. She had barely started talking when a phone call interrupted her. It was U.S Sen. Angus King, an independent who caucuses with Democrats and endorsed Mills this year.
“Hello, yes? I’m just giving a victory speech, Angus,” she said. The crowd roared.
That call from one former governor effectively stood in for another. Breaking with norms, LePage never called to concede the election to Mills, she told reporters in Portland on Wednesday.
A father votes with his son for the first time.
Steven Gingras picked his son, Thomas, up from his dorm at the University of Maine at Farmington and drove him to the Augusta Civic Center to make sure his son could cast his first-ever ballot in his home city.
Thomas Gingras, an 18-year-old psychology student, voted for Mills. He said the process was a lot easier than he remembered observing as a kid and that it felt good to vote.
“It was a good election for me to start with,” he said. “It’s an important one, I think.”
His dad, Steven, said he’s a registered Republican but voted for Mills alongside his son.
“I’m happy with what she’s done so far. I think that you know, four years is not a lot of time to get your agenda across. You need more time,” Gingras said. “Just the divisiveness of the administration that he [LePage] put forward, it was not something that I was comfortable with. I saw what Trump did and I didn’t like that either.”
