What Maine’s most divided town thinks of this year’s election

As soon as the house of Maine’s solely nuclear energy plant, Wiscasset is a well-liked vacationer vacation spot recognized for Purple’s Eats, the famed lobster roll cease, in a reasonably downtown marked by classical structure. That space is divorced from a rural inside. All of it weighs on civic life, break up in a means residents say is more and more evident and even hostile.

“The southern a part of the state is all liberal, the true northern may be very conservative,” stated Invoice Maloney, a selectman and chair of the city Republican committee. “And we’re wedged within the center right here.”

Wiscasset is up for grabs once more throughout an election cycle outlined by prices and inflation and the overturning of abortion rights by the Supreme Courtroom. The best way it splits may assist resolve Maine’s subsequent governor and Legislature and supply a window into our polarized politics.

At left: A historic, federalist-style home sits on the primary thoroughfare in Wiscasset on Thursday, Oct. 13, 2022. The city, recognized for its structure and site visitors snarls, is among the most politically divided communities within the state; At proper: Lisa Tichy walks her canine in Wiscasset on Thursday, Oct. 13, 2022. Tichy stated she doesn’t assume most individuals perceive how politically divided her city is nowadays. Credit score: Troy R. Bennett / BDN

The prevailing concept for the divide is straightforward: There are extra liberals dwelling downtown, lots of whom grew up elsewhere, and extra conservative ones within the city’s northern outskirts, marked by the Wiscasset Speedway and the rod and gun membership near the Dresden line.

That divide could have grown round nationwide points, however there are additionally disputes near residence. A 2016 story within the Bangor Every day Information famous chaos in native authorities, from resignations of officers to upset citizen teams and referendum questions on small issues, together with one on whether or not firemen may proceed to clean their automobiles on the station. It was authorised.

Lisa Tichy, 63, who’s voting for Gov. Janet Mills and lives downtown, stated Thursday that lots of the older residents who had lived their complete lives in Wiscasset tended to be extra conservative, and admire the brash type of former President Donald Trump and former Gov. Paul LePage, the Democratic governor’s chief opponent within the November election.

“You don’t see crossover,” Tichy stated. “There are conservatives and liberals, and the 2 don’t meet in any means, form or type.”

Conversely, David Sprague, 55, who lives within the extra rural a part of Wiscasset and works  downtown on the pierside Sprague’s Lobster, admires LePage, evaluating his message to Trump’s and saying his financial insurance policies “would put folks again to work.”

Vacationers have been nonetheless coming to Wiscasset on Thursday. The autumn season is an enormous one for the lobster shack. However the financial system has been exhausting for the enterprise, Sprague stated. His 73-year-old mom had been pressured to work across the clock as a result of lack of assist. Rising prices have made it more durable to show a revenue.

“We’re nearly giving stuff away at value,” Sprague stated.

The divides are so robust that they inspired a former Democrat working for a Maine Home of Representatives seat to depart his social gathering. Evan Goodkowsky, 31, an assessor who additionally works on increasing broadband in Lincoln County, stated he needed to achieve voters simpler.

“There’s lots of people that really feel that they will’t discuss to any individual of the opposite social gathering,” Goodkowsky stated. “I needed to be impartial to have the door extra open.”  

Wiscasset’s odd Home race options one other impartial — former Rep. Les Fossel of Alna, who served as a reasonable Republican — and former selectman Ed Polewarczyk, the Republican nominee. The district additionally contains Alna, Jefferson and Whitefield.

Financial worries are paramount for Wiscasset voters. Maine Yankee, the nuclear plant, as soon as produced 1 / 4 of the state’s energy. When it was decommissioned in 1996, it paid 91 % of the city’s property taxes. Its closing precipitated a much smaller Okay-12 faculty inhabitants and a better property tax fee.

Desiree Bailey, 39, who owns a neighborhood salon and tea room and is on the college board, stated she had discovered folks to be more and more public about their politics over the past 5 years. She will be able to usually rapidly work out which social gathering somebody identifies with even when they don’t say it.

Bailey stated she can’t carry herself to vote for Mills once more. She is frightened about inflation and its impact on her companies, however she was most upset that the governor left choices on masks to highschool boards, creating lasting mistrust.

“I assumed she threw us below the bus,” Bailey stated of the governor.

Some view their poll via a nationwide lens. Vince Salvitti, 70, a retired actual property agent who just lately moved right here from Pennsylvania, was watching the final of the congressional hearings on the Capitol riots of Jan. 6, 2021, in his residence adorned with a Mills garden signal on Thursday, saying he was livid at Republicans and Trump for placing social gathering over nation.

“They’re extra considering maintaining their jobs than within the nation and caring for folks,” Salvitti stated. “That’s a normal feeling I’ve about Republicans.”

Because the chief of the native Republicans, Maloney stated he was most frightened about getting them out to vote on this political setting.

“A few of them have type of thrown their fingers up,” he stated.

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