HJ Yun

On Tuesday, Americans across the country voted in local, state and federal midterm elections. For the Bowdoin community, elections included candidates running for Brunswick’s school board, town council, Maine state representative and senator, Governor and U.S. Representative and Senator.

Troy Jackson was declared the winner of the election after 30-year incumbent Sen. Susan Collins conceded early Wednesday morning. Rep. Chellie Pingree won reelection to Congress representing Maine’s first district, while her daughter, Hannah Pingree, was elected Governor.

On Thursday, Secretary of State Shenna Bellows announced that the race in Maine’s second district, which includes the northern part of the state, would go to a ranked-choice runoff between State Auditor Matt Dunlap and former Gov. Paul LePage, despite the fact that Dunlap conceded. In the midst of the “blue wave” of Democratic victories across the country, Maine’s second district is one of the few seats that flipped from Democratic to Republican control, alongside Tennessee’s ninth district, where Justin J. Pearson ’17 (D-Tenn) lost to Brent Taylor (R-Tenn).

Brittany Yue ’27, the co-president of the Bowdoin Democrats, expressed excitement at the election results.

“It’s obviously thrilling to see the margins by which both Pingree and Jackson won. I don’t think we thought it would be that decisive, but it was great to see the energy leading up to the election, and then especially yesterday on Election Day,” Yue said. “But winning the vote is just the first step. It’s important that we maintain our momentum to make sure that these newly elected politicians and returning politicians are doing their part and upholding their campaign promises.”

The results of Tuesday night’s elections did not shock Yue.

“A lot of polls did predict that Jackson would have somewhat of a margin over Susan Collins, and the same for [Democrats in] a handful of other Senate and [gubernatorial] races across the country, but definitely as we got later into the night, it was exciting to see the New York Times Needle swing more to the left,” Yue said. “[The] energy was great. [It] just got better and better as the night went on.”

Yue also detailed the Bowdoin Democrats’ preparations for Election Day.

“We wanted to encourage as many people to get to the polls as we could, so we suspended our meetings for this week so that people could do whatever they needed to either get to the polls or do mail-in ballots,” Yue said. “We did a ‘Storm the Dorms’ [Monday night] where we taped up in the [first-year] bricks and the College Houses some infographics about why you should vote in Maine.”

Caroline Clinton ’27, one of two program coordinators for Bowdoin Votes, described the organization’s function in this election cycle.

“Our main goal is to just get students out to vote. We’re a non-partisan organization, so we don’t have any partisan biases,” Clinton said. “We have five democracy ambassadors that we work with, and they’re hired employees that help us organize different voter registration events, mobilization efforts, [things] like Stroll to the Polls and just getting people informed on what’s on their ballot and able to … express their civic duty.”

In addition to running vans from Moulton Circle to the polls every 15 minutes from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Election Day, Clinton shared that part of her job was clearing up students’ misconceptions about voting.

“The biggest question we got … was if [students] could switch their registration [if they were registered in another state] or if they could still register same-day,” Clinton said. “People had the understanding that they could register in Maine. However, they worried more about what their previous registration was, or if they got sent an absentee ballot, but the great thing about voting in Maine is that you can register same-day.”

Clinton was very satisfied with the number of students that took advantage of the Bowdoin Votes vans to get to the polls, especially given it was a midterm election.

“78 people went to early voting … and [316] students [were] in our vans on election day,” Clinton said. “I think [we took] around 420 students to the polls on 2024 Election Day, and hitting three-quarters of that plus so many more early voters during a midterm season is a pretty big deal.”

The Bowdoin College Conservatives did not respond to a request for comment.