At this week's Round Table, Erina, Jack, Kenisha, Madeline, and Skyla spoke with Maine State Senator Chloe Maxmin , the youngest woman elected to the Maine House and Senate, and a relentless voice in the fight for progressive politics+climate change. She waged back-to-back successful campaigns in 2018+2020, winning a House district that had a 16 point Republican advantage, then going on to unseat the highest-ranking Republican in the Maine Senate. Maxmin decided NOT to seek another term in order to devote her focus to grassroots organizing outside of Maine via her organization, Dirt Road Organizing, building on more than thirteen years of community organizing with a focus on climate change, including co-founding Divest Harvard, a campaign calling on her alma mater Harvard University to divest from fossil fuels that ultimately drew 70,000 supporters. Chloe’s goal is to activate and support lots of young progressive candidates in rural communities across the country, and share her successful blueprint for how the Democratic Party can rebuild bridges with these rural voters, long abandoned by the Dem Party. She believes she can make a bigger impact by getting lots of folks elected instead of just getting herself elected. As you can imagine, all this made for a very interesting conversation on many levels! We talked about what motivated Chloe to get involved in work like this at such an early age, challenges she faced, and how she’s overcome them in her campaigns and in office. We talked about what it’s like to amplify a movement of progressive politics in rural Maine, what it was like to be the first Democrat ever elected in her district, and how to build a broader base of support in the service of working towards what’s best for EVERYONE, in a bipartisan way, within a very partisan political environment . We talked about urban vs rural divides, and how to move beyond generalizations of rural life outside the city, politically, socially, and intellectually. We talked about the primacy of building power together and aligning around values; as Chloe notes, she never met a Republican who wanted fewer good jobs or more expensive health care–where things devolve are around politics and party. And we talked about the power of local politics and recognizing that the vast majority of decisions that affect people’s everyday lives happen in state legislatures. A signature lesson Chloe learned in state office is that the best policy doesn’t happen WITHOUT grassroots organizing—and that movement building is vital for getting good people elected and keeping them in office. Here’s to it. Thank you for listening!
