Augusta, Maine – In a new op-ed in the Portland Press Herald, Maine Democratic Party Executive Director Devon Murphy-Anderson reflects on how Maine Democrats came together to pull off an unprecedented nominating process on a compressed timeline – culminating in more than 17,000 Democrats casting ballots and 601 delegates gathering in Bangor to select the party’s U.S. Senate nominee.

Murphy-Anderson details the work that went into building an open, transparent, and representative process from the ground up, and how thousands of Maine Democrats stepped up to make it a success.

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Portland Press Herald: Maine Democrats pulled it off in Bangor | Opinion

By Devon Murphy-Anderson

August 11, 2026

• 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.

• 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?

• 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.

• 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.

• 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.