Amid the noise, the misinformation, the cursed algorithms and other chaos, November’s election was in many ways a referendum on the Democratic Party and how well it is responding (or is perceived to be responding) to the needs of everyday people. 

In Maine, Democrats managed to maintain their trifecta of power while losing a handful of seats in both the Maine Senate and House of Representatives. Though Democratic U.S. Rep. Jared Golden is taking pains to distance himself from the party brand, he also held his seat in Maine’s more conservative 2nd District, which President Donald Trump won by 10 points.

The losses — though not a bloodbath by any measure — have served as a wake-up call for the state party, which is holding leadership elections on Sunday. 

Conversations with those vying to replace outgoing Democratic Party chair Bev Uhlenhake give a window into the lessons taken from November, as well as how Democrats in Maine are thinking about the 2026 gubernatorial election and beyond.

On Thursday, Gov. Janet Mills sent an internal letter throwing her weight behind former state legislator Raegan LaRochelle for chair. The endorsement prompted one candidate, Westport Island attorney Barbara Cray, to withdraw.

Regardless of the outcome of the race, all of the candidates seem to be in agreement that one thing the party needs to prioritize is listening to voters, particularly those in rural Maine.

A focus on outreach and engagement

April Fournier said she values the party’s focus on inclusivity. However, she said, “when we look at the party platform, it talks about making sure that people have access to voting. It talks about people having access to health care and reproductive rights … these are all the things that people are really excited about, and yet people aren’t showing up.”

Fournier, who serves on the Portland City Council, said if elected she would make a point to travel to more rural parts of the state. Through her day job as a voter engagement strategist with the Native Organizers Alliance, Fournier, who is a citizen of Navajo Nation, has traveled to Native communities across the country, where she heard many express that they felt disconnected or left out of politics. “I have a sense that maybe our rural counties and our rural Democratic voters also feel that disconnect.”

Attorney Charles Dingman said “the Maine Democratic Party needs to both be and be understood to be the party of Maine’s working people, and I think that is not necessarily understood and felt by all of the people who work,” which he noted includes all forms of work, including unpaid caregiving. 

While he doesn’t have a specific critique of the Maine Democratic Party, Dingman said it needs to be “reaching working people who may feel disillusioned, who may feel frustration with conditions of their lives that haven’t been adequately addressed.”

But Dingman said he “doesn’t have a blueprint” for what this work looks like and acknowledged the challenge of putting these conversations into action.

After serving in the Maine House of Representatives, Augusta resident LaRochelle ran for Senate District 15, which was previously held by a Republican, and lost to Republican Dick Bradstreet by fewer than 200 votes. 

During her campaign, LaRochelle, who runs a small business as an economic development consultant, said she had the opportunity to “knock on a lot of rural doors” and spent her time “listening to what people’s concerns were, their fears, their frustrations.” 

She said it’s important to remember “that some of these areas that used to be strongly Democratic have dwindled in recent years. We need to be working at the local level so that we can win these people back.”

LaRochelle hopes to focus on bringing in new people and continuing to engage the volunteers who get involved with elections, and supporting county committees and chairs with that work. She said she’s eager to “channel people’s energy and get them involved for the 2026 cycle and beyond here in Maine.”

Drawing from lived experience

For Fournier, a lot of the challenge lies in getting lower income voters to feel welcomed by the Democratic apparatus. 

“When we have these big events — whether it’s the annual Muskie Lobster Bake, which is a big fundraiser, or our Blue Wave Gala — how are we making it accessible to every member of our party, regardless of where they fall in the economic spectrum? Because I think that is really something that we’re not doing great at.”

Fournier said as a Native woman, she would “bring a very different perspective” to the role, having had “the experience of being othered and … being on the outside and not really part of the group that’s making decisions” even when those decisions are related to her community. 

Dingman grew up on his family farm in Turner and now lives in Leeds. He said he feels “connected to parts of the state … where we have a lot of our work to do in terms of reaching people who may have lost interest in Democratic Party.”

Dingman has worked for several government agencies, including serving as general counsel on the Maine Health Care Finance Commission, and now has a private practice in Augusta where he focuses on health care. For the past 20 years, he has volunteered for the board of Maine Equal Justice and served as chair of the finance committee of Democratic Party.

He said he went to law school because “I thought law was the way to find the tools to make change to make people’s lives better.”

In addition to her experiences as a lawmaker, LaRochelle said working with businesses and municipalities to attract investment has taken her “everywhere from Limestone to Gardiner.” A single mother, she moved back to Maine to raise her twin sons, who are now 17, and said she’s had a lot of the same challenges and experiences as other Mainers. 

“I’ve dealt with personal issues that I feel help me relate to what many others are dealing with, whether its medical costs or monthly prescriptions for my children, to addiction issues, to going to the grocery store,” she said. “Just being at this level and being involved in my community and being able to talk to people everyday will help me in this role. I just feel like I’m just like everyone else.” 

Lessons from the opposition

Though the majority of Maine voters backed Kamala Harris for president, Trump again won the 2nd District handily, underscoring how divided the state is when it comes to party politics. 

LaRochelle argues that much of the Republican successes came down to messaging.

To counter that, she said her party needs to focus on “controlling the narrative … so that Mainers understand that Democrats are working for them every single day.” 

“I want the opportunity to put our message out there instead of feeling like we need to react, and tell the real story about what’s happening in Maine with the work that’s being done at the state level,” LaRochelle said.

Dingman spoke of the need to balance the impulse to react to every action and statement by the Trump administration with a focus on long-term needs and goals.

“We have to on the one hand remain vigilant and resistant to the worst that the administration tries to visit on our country,” he said. “But we have to do so with the recognition of the fact that if we protest and complain about every announced intention, we will exhaust ourselves.”

Fournier sees it as a moment to really look at what’s not working “to make sure that we have the majority, the power, and people reengaged in this whole process.”

She also said it’s important to be able to work with everybody and “be open to every conversation with the people that agree with you, and with the people that don’t.”

“It’s an Indigenous principle,” she said. “We are looking for our shared humanity first.”

A focus on 2026

Throughout their interviews, the candidates repeatedly returned to the upcoming gubernatorial election. 

Historically, on the national level and in Maine, the Democratic Party has been criticized for appearing to favor establishment primary candidates.

Fournier said it’s essential to have “a truly competitive primary that touches all parts of the state, so that people really feel like they have a chance to plug into and ask questions and figure out who is going to be our best Democratic candidate for governor.” 

She noted that there will be candidates “that will have a lot of money, and there will be people that don’t have a lot of money. And the people that don’t have a lot of money … they need to have equal airspace as the people who have war chests.”

Dingman agreed that the party “has to be in the position of allowing voters to make the decision about who the nominee should be” and “has to be mindful of appearances that make that process seem less than balanced.” 

As chair, he said he would “strongly support a robust focus on fairness and the ability of all candidates to be heard, and for ideas rather than personal attacks to be the order of the day.”

Focusing on the stakes of the election, LaRochelle pointed to the not-so-distant past when Maine was under Republican rule. 

“It will be critically important for us to find the right candidate to continue the work Gov. Mills has done, to be able to champion the Legislature, to make sure we are continuing to deal with really huge issues in our state that we haven’t had to deal with before,” like housing, homelessness and inflation.

Dingman also noted that control of government in Maine “tends to oscillate,” and said it’s “absolutely vital” for Democrats to maintain control. But, he added, that’s “not a foregone conclusion.”