[ The victory of Democratic state Rep. Chloe Maxmin, a progressive
champion who ran on the promise of a Green New Deal and offering a
"politics as public service" in a strong GOP district, tells a
different story than the re-election of Susan Collins.]
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GREEN NEW DEAL CHAMPION CHLOE MAXMIN UNSEATS POWERFUL GOP INCUMBENT
IN RURAL MAINE  
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Julia Conley
November 6, 2020
Common Dreams
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_ The victory of Democratic state Rep. Chloe Maxmin, a progressive
champion who ran on the promise of a Green New Deal and offering a
"politics as public service" in a strong GOP district, tells a
different story than the re-election of Susan Collins. _

Maine state Rep. Chloe Maxmin, who won a state Senate seat Tuesday
night after running against state Sen. Minority Leader Dana Dow,
speaks to a voter on the campaign trail., credit: Chloe Maxmin //
Common Dreams

 

The results of the U.S. Senate race this week in Maine—won by
four-term Republican Sen. Susan Collins after Democrats poured $50
million
[[link removed]] into
challenger Sara Gideon's campaign—may have given the impression that
a Trumpian right-wing agenda has an iron grip on the state's more
conservative rural voters, but the victory of Democratic state Rep.
Chloe Maxmin, a progressive champion who ran on the promise of a Green
New Deal and offering a "politics as public service" in a strong GOP
district, tells a much different story.

Two years after winning a seat in the state House of Representatives,
representing conservative, rural District 88, Maxmin secured a win in
her challenge to state Senate Republican Leader Dana Dow. As in her
first campaign for elected office, Maxmin won over voters in state
Senate District 13—where residents chose Collins 
[[link removed]]over
Gideon—by engaging deeply with her community and offering a
platform [[link removed]] focused on climate
action, investing in universal broadband access, and treating
healthcare as a human right. 

Maxmin's campaign was focused on providing help to people in a part of
Maine where many feel disillusioned by politics and neglected by
leaders in the state legislature and Washington, D.C.—but her energy
was spent less on convincing voters to back a progressive agenda and
more on giving them a platform to talk about their own experiences. 

"Too often we talk about these things in a partisan lens, but
overwhelmingly people believe we need to tax the wealthy, that we need
to raise the minimum wage, that we need sick days, paid family leave,
healthcare access that's real, that everyone can see a doctor when
they need to. Those are not limited to a party. And when you build a
multi-race, multi-class coalition like Chloe did... That's how you win
in those places."
—Mike Tipping, Maine People's Alliance

"When I talk to folks, I mostly listen, I don't show up and talk about
myself," Maxmin told _Common Dreams_ on Thursday. "I really try and
listen and make sure that the voices that I hear are reflected in our
campaign... The work that we do on our side is to really think about
campaigns differently, because we see them as one of the primary ways
that we can start building a new type of politics. So we didn't use
any party consultants. We designed all of our mailers, palm cards,
postcards ourselves. We're all about authentic conversation and just
had dozens and dozens of volunteers writing postcards or having
conversations with voters and using the same style of just listening,
and not going around saying, 'You should vote for Chloe because of
this,' but trying to understand where people are at."

"My sense is that people really saw that we were doing it differently
and that I could be in office differently, too," she added.

When the Covid-19 pandemic hit earlier this year, the Maxmin campaign
further stepped up its commitment to engaging directly with voters,
enlisting 200 volunteers to check on voters' wellbeing.

"Maxmin called upon her volunteers to reach out to every senior in her
district and her network of campaign volunteers provided food,
assistance with prescription drugs and identified transpiration
needs," Marie Follayttar, director of the progressive grassroots group
Mainers for Accountable Leadership, told _Common Dreams_. "Chloe is
both a community organizer and an elected official. Not only is Chloe
willing to listen to the people where they are—at their dinner table
or at their door—she is demonstrably responsive to their needs and
leverages the organizing structure of her campaign to assist her in
accomplishing mutual aid work."

Other Democratic campaigns in the state, Follayttar noted, "could have
done this as well. We transform lives by being present in them and
building community to support one another. We move into legislative
action by turning the concerns heard at the door into legislation."

Maxmin, who introduced the state's Green New Deal
[[link removed]] in
2019, with the notable backing 
[[link removed]]of
the state AFL-CIO, and co-founded the fossil fuel divestment campaign
Divest Harvard while in college, won applause from national climate
action campaigners at 350.org and Friends of the Earth. 

Hats off to new Maine State Senator Chloe Maxmin, a true climate
champ who managed to beat the incumbent Senate Minority Leader.

— Bill McKibben (@billmckibben) November 4, 2020
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Congrats to progressive champion (and Friends of the Earth board
member) Chloe Maxmin! [link removed]
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— Friends of the Earth (Action) (@foe_us) November 4, 2020
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"Just seeing the amazing news that Chloe Maxmin—who was a young
leader of Divest Harvard—has won a seat in the Maine State Senate!"
exclaimed Thelma Young-Lutunatabua, an organizer with 350.org, on
Wednesday. "Youth of the climate movement gaining political office!"

Maxmin's tactic of engaging authentically with voters in reminiscent
of "deep canvassing," 
[[link removed]]a
method of campaigning used by the national grassroots network People's
Action and found to be 102 times more effective at winning over
undecided voters than a typical brief interaction during a
door-knocking or phone-banking campaign.

"Deep canvassing differs from traditional campaign tactics because it
relies on soul," People's Action Director George Goehl told _Common
Dreams._ "In a deep canvass conversation, you break down your walls
and the canvasser and voter really connect with one another. This is
the kind of organizing that changes hearts and minds."

Maxmin told_ Common Dreams_ that her campaign led her to "thousands"
of similar interactions.

"I had thousands of conversations with people," she said. "And it's so
interesting when you have that kind of breadth to your exposure of
humanity, just the themes that you hear. And it was really, really
consistent—rarely hearing direct issues, mostly hearing about how
people are so frustrated with everyone and everything on both sides
and just hating the negative campaigning."

Mike Tipping of Maine People's Alliance, an affiliate of People's
Action, credited Maxmin's ability to connect with voters across party
lines, stressing that Maxmin ran a campaign she defined as
"bipartisan" rather than "progressive" because issues that matter to
voters in her rural district are important to people of all political
beliefs. 

"These are universal progressive values," Tipping told _Common
Dreams._ "Too often we talk about these things in a partisan lens,
but overwhelmingly people believe we need to tax the wealthy, that we
need to raise the minimum wage, that we need sick days, paid family
leave, healthcare access that's real, that everyone can see a doctor
when they need to. Those are not limited to a party. And when you
build a multi-race, multi-class coalition like Chloe did... That's how
you win in those places."

In "Rural Runner," a short film by Forest Woodward about Maxmin and
her campaign manager, Canyon Woodward, Maxmin is seen knocking on
doors in rural Maine, talking to voters about how their lives could be
impacted by a Green New Deal for the state and other progressive
legislation. 

"Every year we keep electing the same kind of folks," she says in the
film. "They tell us the same things, they act the same way, we elect
them, they get into the state House, and they break the same promises
and we're left with the same disillusionment that we had before."

 

[[link removed]]

Watch here [[link removed]].

In 2018, Maxmin began her campaign in House District 88 as an
underdog, 16 points behind her opponent, but credited her tireless
face-to-face campaigning with securing victory.

"What Chloe and I have done is pretty simple," said Woodward in "Rural
Runner," which was filmed as the team was beginning Maxmin's campaign
for the state Senate race. "We put one foot in front of the other, we
listen, we show up every day rain or shine, we do our best. We never
really know what we're capable of unless we try."

After becoming the first Democrat ever to win House District 88 at the
age of 26, Maxmin introduced her state's own Green New
Deal, centering
[[link removed]] the
legislation on a just transition for workers in the fossil fuel sector
and investing in solar installations for newly-built schools. 

In the State House, she has also sponsored legislation to provide
access to rural public transportation, an issue she campaigned on this
year and called [[link removed]] "the great
equalizer in rural communities." Maine Senate District 13 has
been represented
[[link removed]] by
Republicans for most of the last decade. 

While the national Democratic Party often express wariness about
engaging with voters in traditionally conservative areas about issues
erroneously deemed "left wing," such as far-reaching action to solve
the climate emergency, Maxmin's winning campaigns suggest Democrats
can find more success with rural voters by being unapologetic
proponents of policies aimed at helping working people.

"She is no shrinking violet and didn't try and moderate herself or be
anyone other than who she is, and I think voters responded to that,"
Tipping said.

During the campaigns Maxmin and Woodward have run together,
they wrote
[[link removed]] in
an article for _The Nation_ in 2018, "We dig into the local,
cultivating relationships and utilizing the resourcefulness of our
rural communities to build a rooted movement... We see that rural
America is alive and beautiful, eager to be heard and remembered."

"Many have welcomed us into their homes and honored us with stories of
family members who are registering to vote just for our campaign, who
are voting Democrat for the first time, who have never voted in a
midterm but now are because our movement gives them hope," they
continued.

"We view our campaign as a movement, built on shared values and
authentic conversations," Maxmin and Woodward wrote. "We build real
political power, with lasting muscle for the long fight, with an
inside-outside movement that elects authentic representatives to fight
for everyone and continues to organize beyond the election to maintain
pressure on our politicians."

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