Election reflections

 

After a full year of intense activity the campaign to elect Lisa Savage for the US Senate is over.  She got 5% of the vote, securing 40,191 votes across every corner of the state, while the Republican incumbent Susan Collins won the race with 51% of the vote.  Because Collins got 50% plus one vote Maine's new Ranked Choice Voting (RCV) system was not needed.

Polls prior to the election asked voters who they would rank as their 2nd choice under RCV and Lisa led in that ranking with 33% - more than any of the other candidates.  I believe this reveals quite clearly that Lisa did in fact make a deep impression on Maine voters with her calm, articulate, respectful, and knowledgeable performance as a candidate.  This was particularly evident in the first four debates in which she participated - with most debate watchers saying that Lisa had won them.

There were various issues that arose during the campaign which indicated that the Democrats worked overtime to disrupt Lisa's growing likeability with Maine voters.  We repeatedly heard from key activists across the state that rumors were being circulated that included the following:

• The Democrats were spreading lies that Lisa's campaign was being funded by the Republican Susan Collins as a way to defeat the Democrat Sara Gideon.

• One person I know in Maine sent me this message: "A lawyer prof friend of mine sent out a message last night to probably a lot of people, urging them to rank Gideon #1 for two reasons.  The first was an apparently incorrect interpretation of RCV. [In other words, don't trust RCV, it won't work as advertised.] However, the second one posited a scenario in which Collins pulls a  Poliquin [former Republican Congressman who lost his seat due to RCV] and contests an RCV loss in court, persisting further than Poliquin to an obviously iffy situation in the new Supreme Court."

• "I know the law prof is a Gideon supporter, but she has a long history of integrity and sometimes-ground-breaking work in civil rights and gender issues, and it's hard to fit dirty Dem politics into her worldview, so I'm not sure she is being a Dem tool."

Thus many loyal Democrats - hearing from a 'law professor' - were frightened to death. If they had the slightest inclination to rank Lisa first they surely gave up the idea on a false claim that RCV doesn't really work!

The money raised in this campaign was obscene.  Sara Gideon led the pack with over $68 million and Susan Collins came in next with more than $26 million.  Lisa Savage raised about $193,000 which to me is one hell of alot of money.  One Lisa campaign volunteer created this graphic to show the cost per vote in the election.  It's not exact but close enough to make the point.

According to analysis by the Center for Responsive Politics, 92 percent of individual contributions to Collins and 93 percent received by Gideon came from outside of Maine. 

I've marginally helped on a few campaigns in my time but my volunteer work on this campaign was more than any other before.  I can say without hesitation that my vote for Lisa Savage was my most proud vote of my life. The other was with my vote for Sen. George McGovern in 1972 when he lost the race for president against Richard Nixon.  I was in the Air Force at the time - during the Vietnam War.

There have been many times over the years when I went into the voting booth and walked away not having chosen any of the candidates - thus handing in a blank ballot.  

Reading the many comments by Lisa supporters on various Internet platforms I can say that there were many voters in Maine with similar views.  They were inspired by the teacher/activist who gave voice to their demands for Medicare for All, deep concerns about Climate crisis, opposition to endless war and much more.  To have Lisa in the four debates speaking to these issues was a great victory.

Lisa was denied entry into the last debate when the WMTW TV station in Portland (owned by the Hearst media corporation) refused to allow her to participate.  The corporation's lawyer claimed that Lisa and the other Independent candidate were not 'newsworthy'. Lisa's team quickly posted an online petition that was signed by 2,600 people and on the evening of the debate Lisa and about 30 supporters went to the station attempting to enter the event.  The station blocked her entry and refused to take a copy of the petitions. A video of this attempt was viewed on Facebook over 8,600 times.

It seemed fairly obvious to me that the two mainstream parties pulled strings at the corporate level to get Lisa excluded from the debate.  Particularly the Democrats had the most to lose by having Lisa in the last debate as it was likely the time when many 'undecided' procrastinating voters tuned in to make their final decision on who they would support. It was a dirty trick but once again revealed to anyone paying attention the lengths the two big-money parties will go to in order to shut out alternative voices.

 

 

Quite a number of people are urging Lisa to run again for another office but it is unlikely that she will do so.  She does intend to stay involved in the issues that she cares most about - people, planet and peace.  She is already talking about wanting to ensure that we keep many of the new people attracted to her campaign involved in on-going work here in Maine.

Yesterday Lisa and I spent five hours driving around various parts of Maine picking up campaign signs from the side of roads.  We had lots of time to talk about the past year.  I remember so many days when she was dog tired but still she got herself out the door and drove to various communities in order to attend farmers markets.  It was one of the few places she could go during this pandemic to actually talk with voters - masked and social distancing - but still doing the work of a candidate.

It was an honor to have Lisa stay with us at our home in Bath during the past few months due to the fact that she needed a good Wifi connection to run her campaign.  Her home in rural Maine, like so many others in the state, have poor broadband connection.  Her husband Mark came most weekends for a visit.

So now life must return to 'normal' and Mary Beth and I have one campaign task left to do.  On Sunday we will drive on Hwy 27 to Farmington to pick up the last batch of campaign signs I planted in the ground.  After that it will all just be one great fleeting memory.

Bruce