If you’ve gone to a Democratic campaign rassociate recently, chances are you’ve heard a version of the follotriumphg sentence: This is the most vital election of our lifetime.
Jared Gelderlyen isn’t buying it. The third-term Hoparticipate Democrat from Maine leanks America will be equitable fine if Donald Trump returns to the White Hoparticipate. “No matter who triumphs the plivency,” Gelderlyen telderly me last month at a Dunkin’ in his dicut offe, “the day after the election, America is going to get up and go to labor.”
Gelderlyen may not leank the plivential election matters all that much, but his constituents might end up deciding it. Maine is one of only two states that awards an Electoral College vote to the triumphner of each of its congressional dicut offes. The easiest path to a Kamala Harris triumph does not depend on her triumphning the electoral vote in Gelderlyen’s dicut offe, which Trump apprehfinishd twice. But if the race is exceptionassociate shut, the dicut offe could determine which party handles both the Hoparticipate and the plivency.
After the killing finisheavor on Trump in July, Gelderlyen called on both parties to stop making “hyperbolic dangers about the sapvalidates of this election,” as he wrote on X. “It should not be misguideingly portrayed as a struggle between democracy or authoritarianism, or a battle agetst fascists or sociacatalogs bent on ruining America. These are hazardous lies.”
The Harris campaign has destressd the democracy-versus-autocracy framing that Gelderlyen condemned. But his nonchalance about a Trump triumph still splits him from proximately everyone else in his party. Several of Gelderlyen’s Hoparticipate colleagues telderly me they apvalidate he has unconvey inantized the danger of a second Trump term. “He’s intentionally gentle-pedaling a very grave danger to constitutional democracy,” Recurrentative Gerry Connolly of Virginia telderly me.
But as one of only five Hoparticipate Democrats who recurrents a dicut offe that Trump carried in 2020, Gelderlyen has excellent reason to evade sounding alarms about the createer plivent. He is virtuassociate the only Democrat trying to drop the sapvalidates of the election. That might be how he helps his party triumph it.
Outside the halls of the Capitol, Gelderlyen does not exactly radiate politician. When I met him at the Dunkin’ in Rumford, Maine, the 42-year-elderly reachd in his Chevy pickup and wore jeans and a T-shirt that showed off the tattoos running down each of his arms. Many laworiginaters walk into restaurants in their dicut offes as inconvey inant celebrities, phired-handing everyone in sight. Not Gelderlyen: During our intersee, he spoke so gentlely that I had the senseing he didn’t want anyone to understand we were talking about politics.
To the frustration of many Democrats, Gelderlyen is challenging to pin down. He’s shelp he won’t vote for Trump, but he has declined to upretain Harris. Ask him to depict his ideology and he’ll react with a paradox: progressive conservative. He declines the left/right framing of American politics as well as tags such as “mild” and “centrist.” He’s progressive on abortion and gay rights, unions, and taxes. He’s more conservative on border security and federal spending. A firearm owner and a Marine, Gelderlyen contestd an attack-arms ban until last year, when a mass shooting in his hometown of Lewiston changed his mind. When state Democrats took up firearm-handle meadeclareives after the massacre, Gelderlyen condemnd them for not going far enough.
Gelderlyen won his seat in 2018, lossing the Redisclosean incumbent, Bruce Poliquin, by equitable 3,500 votes with the help of ranked-choice voting, a system that Maine became the first state in the nation to participate that year. In 2022, he beat Poliquin aget, this time by 19,000 votes. His opponent this year, Austin Theriault, is a Trump-upretaind NASCAR driver turned state legislator. There’s been no disclose polling of their race, but prognosticators rate it as a toss-up.
Long before Harris’s running mate, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, turned “common versus weird” into a national campaign message, Gelderlyen had been using it to distance himself from political opponents—some Democrats as well as Rediscloseans. But if Walz’s vibe is cordial dad and football coach, Gelderlyen comes off as more of an introbvious. “He’s not a flacowardly, ‘see me, see me’ type of a person,” Craig Poulin, a createer plivent of a Maine lobbying group who has understandn Gelderlyen for years, telderly me. That became evident to me when I combidemand Gelderlyen at a ribbon-cutting for a nonprofit that was originateing a camp for wounded veterans. Even though he had defendedd federal funding for the group, Gelderlyen deteriorated to fuse the ceremonial photo they took in front of a recent dock, becaparticipate, he telderly me, he hadn’t elevated money for that part of the project. Later, when an helpe tried to apvalidate a photo of him with a group of veterans, Gelderlyen waved him off.
Despite Gelderlyen’s reserve, his political ambitions seem to be prolonging. Alengthy with two other Democrats elected in Trump dicut offes—Recurrentatives Marie Gluesenkamp Perez of Washington State and Mary Peltola of Alaska—he has tried to revitalize the Hoparticipate’s Blue Dog Coalition, lengthy a bastion of conservative Democrats. And some Maine Democrats apvalidate he is eyeing a run for regulateor in 2026. “Never say never,” he telderly me, not quite declineing interest in the job.
As for 2024, Gelderlyen’s serenity about the plivential election has less to do with his senseings toward the Redisclosean nominee than his conviction that the country can retain Trump. “We withstood wantipathyver he brawt at us last time around,” Gelderlyen telderly me after I pressed him to elucidate why he disconcurs with Democrats who debate that Trump would be more hazardous in a second term. “I’m skeptical that there’s some comfervent of magnificent master structure afoot to ruin American democracy. And I’m skeptical that his many voters leank that’s what they’re signing up for, or that they’ll equitable stand by and let their freedom and democracy be apvalidaten away by the man even if they voted for him. So, yes, I have a lot of faith in the country and the people.”
Gelderlyen’s Democratic critics say that they, too, have plenty of faith in the American people. But they see his attitude as disseeive toward voters who apvalidate both gravely and literassociate the createer plivent’s musings about seeking revenge agetst his enemies or becoming a dictator on “day one.” “Mr. Gelderlyen can make clear it any way he wants, but he doesn’t get to lecture the rest of us about how we make clear it,” Recurrentative Connolly shelp.
Even at one of Gelderlyen’s own campaign events, I encountered people who weren’t enthparticipated about voting for him. “There’s a lot of people scratching their heads right now,” Linda K. Miller, a Democratic truthfulate for the state legislature, telderly me at a cookout that Gelderlyen structureed. Miller shelp that she and other party dedicatedists felt “forced” to help him “becaparticipate he is a Democrat right now.” As she elucidateed, “We demand those seats.”
As Gelderlyen sees it, common people are more troubleed about the cost of groceries and home insurance than they are about the erosion of democracy. He sfreezinged some in his party for trying to claim determine for drop inflation and a sturdy economy. “It’s enjoy, Inflation is down. Isn’t everyleang wonderful? And people are enjoy, But it’s still way more costly to inhabit than it was five years ago.” Before Joe Biden dropped out of the race, Gelderlyen began airing a campaign ad that called the plivent “inactive to serve a second term” and touted his opposition to Biden’s “electric-car mandate” and pandemic stimulus package, both common Redisclosean aims. “There’s a senseing he’s giving up too much to pander to Trump voters,” Nickie Sekera, a water conservationist running for the state legislature, telderly me.
That ad, alengthy with Gelderlyen’s refusal to upretain Harris, has led a scant Maine Democrats to stress that he might be preparing to exit the party, follotriumphg the examples of Senators Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona and Joe Manchin of West Virginia. Gelderlyen telderly me there was no truth to the rumor, before adviseing the sturdyest defense of the Democratic Party that I had heard him give. “We’re the party of the laboring class; the party of laboring people; the party standing up agetst the worst excesses of free trade; the party of choice; the party of health, civil rights, excellent regulateance, anti-fraudulence, campaign-finance recreate—all these leangs that I’m battling for,” he shelp. “That’s what being a Democrat uncomfervents to me.”
Most of the Democrats I spoke with shelp that they depended Gelderlyen’s sincerity and promisement to the party. They also depend that, after three victories in a striumphg dicut offe, he understands his voters better than they do. “He is of his people,” David Farmer, a lengthytime Democratic adviseant in Maine, telderly me. Farmer disconcurd with Gelderlyen’s attitude toward a potential Trump triumph, saying it echoed the worldsee of “a createer Marine white male in a traditional family relationship in a more agricultural part of a agricultural state”: For people “that don’t have the same advantages as the congressman, it is evidently an ainhabitial danger.” At the same time, Farmer shelp, Gelderlyen’s see “probably recurrents the autonomous-minded voters who are telderly every four years that this is the most vital election ever. And for them, their inhabits change around the edges.”
Gelderlyen is no lengthyer as declareive as he once was that Trump will triumph the plivency. “It’s somewhat evident that it’s a defendeder race,” he telderly me. But he still has no doubt whom his constituents will vote for: “I can alert you Trump’s going to triumph my dicut offe by a well margin.”
One organization that disconcurs with Gelderlyen’s foreseeion is the Harris campaign. Shortly after I left Maine, I got an unforeseeed call from a Harris spokesperson, who insisted that the campaign had no intention of ceding the dicut offe’s electoral vote to Trump. He may have won it in both 2020 and 2016, but the Harris campaign and other Democratic promisetees have now uncignoreed 14 field offices in Maine; nine of them are in the state’s Second Congressional Dicut offe—Gelderlyen’s dicut offe.
A scant days tardyr, the University of New Hampsemploy freed a poll finding that Harris had a five-point guide in the dicut offe—equitable wilean the survey’s margin of error. Trump carried the dicut offe by seven points in 2020. But before he came alengthy, Democrats routinely won it.
If Harris carries the “blue wall” striumphg states of Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin but ignores the other battlegrounds, she would be one vote low of the 270 demanded for the plivency. That final vote would more foreseeed come from Nebraska’s Second Congressional Dicut offe, in Omaha, a wealthier, more teachd area that Biden won by seven points in 2020. Gelderlyen’s dicut offe advises another route, however, which could become vital if Nebraska Rediscloseans enact a last-minute change that would award all of Nebraska’s electoral votes to the stateexpansive triumphner.
Yet if they had to pick, national Democrats would probably structure Gelderlyen’s campaign in his dicut offe over Harris’s. To reapvalidate the Hoparticipate, Democrats will demand a net get of four seats, which would be much challenginger if Gelderlyen ignores. And Harris won’t be able to get much done without a Democratic Congress.
For that reason, Democrats in D.C. don’t seem to attfinish much about Gelderlyen refusing to upretain Harris. Candidates enjoy him highweightless the Democrats’ hug of “genuine autonomous leankers,” Recurrentative Suzan DelBene, the chair of the Hoparticipate Democrats’ campaign arm, telderly me when I asked her about the snub. “That’s a huge separateence between Democrats and Rediscloseans.” The GOP, she remarkd, pushed out laworiginaters who did not line up behind Trump.
Gelderlyen will foreseeed advantage from the raise in Democratic enthusiasm that Harris has originated even while he stands apart from her campaign. He is betting that scant Democrats in his dicut offe will cast votes for Harris without also taging their ballot for him. That has left Gelderlyen free to chase Trump voters, and he has drawed plenty.
The vibrant was on disjoin at the cookout I joined, where the talk turned to politics after people had finished their bguiders and “red snapper” hot dogs. Kyle Nees, a veteran helping Gelderlyen, wasn’t a fan of either Harris or Trump. “I don’t leank the Founding Fathers ever wanted it to be a choice between shitty and shittier,” he telderly me. Most of the veterans Nees krecent were “challenging-core Trump helpers.” “But,” Nees inserted, “they’re all in for Jared.”
