Devon Murphy-Anderson is the executive director of the Maine Democratic Party. She is from Harpswell and lives in Portland.
At 7 a.m. on July 25, eighty-four volunteers and staff — most with second or third coffees in hand and bags under our eyes — gathered in the Cross Insurance Center foyer in Bangor for a final huddle before the doors opened to welcome 601 delegates from all 16 counties.
This was it.
In a few hours we would have the Democratic nominee for one of the country’s most closely watched U.S. Senate races.
But as I looked around the room, I wasn’t thinking about the vote. I was looking at the faces of our staff and volunteers, united by a commitment to our state, our country, our democracy, our values and our party.
Just a few weeks earlier, none of us knew we’d be here. The Maine Democratic Party suddenly found itself with the enormous responsibility of selecting a new nominee on an incredibly compressed timeline. There was no handbook to pull off the shelf, no recent example to follow. All we had was a legal deadline, a north star of centering Maine voters and one guiding question: how do we build a process that Democrats across Maine can trust?
We weren’t the only ones asking that question. Media outlets across the country were too, many concluding anything other than an internal vote was impossible.
But the world found out exactly what Mainers are made of: relentless hard workers who never back down from a fight.
From the very beginning, this process belonged to Maine. If we were asking people to trust the outcome, they had to trust the process. That meant making it as open, transparent and representative as possible, even if it wasn’t the easiest path. It meant making sure Democrats from every corner of Maine had a chance to participate.
So that’s exactly what we did.
Fueled by adrenaline, caffeine and a passion for the future of our state, we built a 16-county process to select delegates to vote for a new nominee at a state convention.
At every turn, I was humbled by our party — from county chairs organizing delegate meetings to Americans across the country cheering us on to volunteers dropping off food (and Red Bull!) for our team.
People stepped up because they believed getting this right mattered. And Democrats across Maine met that effort by enthusiastically participating in the process.
More than 20,000 Maine Democrats registered to vote in the delegate selection meetings. We saw 85% turnout with over 17,000 of those voters casting a ballot for the close to 4,000 Democrats who ran to be delegates.
Democracy isn’t perfect. It requires us to organize, listen and solve problems together. In this case, it meant never wavering from our responsibility to deliver for Maine, even under pressure.
Over the past few weeks, I watched thousands of Mainers do exactly that. Instead of waiting for others to find a solution or shying away from the sudden spotlight or listening to the national noise, they rolled up their sleeves and got involved.
That’s what I saw when I looked around that convention hall in Bangor. I didn’t just see delegates preparing to cast their votes or the staff and volunteers that made it all possible, I saw thousands of Mainers who had built something together.
I saw pride radiating from every corner of that room. The pride of a job done damn well. The pride that comes from doing something the right way, not the easy way.
Because here in Maine? We ain’t scared. Because as Democrats? When it matters most, we will come together to build, to uplift, to fight for our values.
If you ask me whether it was all worth it — the 20-hour days, the stress, the pressure — seeing Mainers from every corner of our state come together to uphold our democracy and beat Susan Collins made the answer crystal clear: hell yes.