BRUNSWICK, MAINE – On a cloudy and mild Sunday morning, Democratic Gov. Janet Mills stood in front of a gazebo in a small park off Maine Street, where traffic swelled by the last of the weekend leaf peepers sped by. Brunswick is a solid-blue Mid-Coast town, home to Bowdoin College and about 30 minutes north of Portland, Maine’s largest city. Mills came to town to headline the Bowdoin Democrats’ canvassing kickoff, press the flesh, and, yes, take pictures with pouting toddlers.

Before the small group of students and residents left to knock on doors for the governor and state legislative candidates, they listened to Mills tick off how she revived the state health care system after her Republican predecessor Paul LePage left office. She implemented Medicaid expansion by executive order, resuscitated the Maine Center for Disease Control, and rehired dozens of public-health nurses.

"Who doesn’t like public-health nurses?" she wanted to know. "Thank God we had that first year …" Mills got that much out before a slow-moving convoy of bikers roared up and interrupted her flow. The governor swiveled for a look. "My ride," she said. After engines and the laughter died down, she drove home her key point: "We had that first year to rebuild."

Mills spent her first full year in office performing the executive equivalent of cardiopulmonary resuscitation on state government. The state health care system she revitalized played a key role in Maine’s ability to persevere through a global pandemic. During that time, Hawaii emerged as the best-performing health care system in the country; Maine was number two. "I really appreciate [where] she’s taken this state after COVID and the way she’s been able to keep us all safe during that time with her policies," says junior Eliza Scholten, the Bowdoin Dems communications and finance coordinator.

The Maine governor’s race set up a familiar clash of the titans: Maine’s first woman governor and her Trump-prototype Republican predecessor. Mills and LePage feuded constantly when she was attorney general and he was governor, going mano a mano in the state courts. Today, economy and inflation are top of mind for many Maine voters. But after the Dobbs decision, abortion hovers over everything—and the political toxicity that LePage obviously enjoys has left voters anxious to see Election Day in the rearview mirror.