Maine After the 2025 Shellacking: No Blame, No Despair—Just the 2026 Economic Hammer
How Shenna Bellows Rigged the Game, Why We Still Fought Like Hell, and Why 2026’s Economy Ballot Is Ours to Win
Maine Conservatives: The Fight Was Real, the Deck Was Stacked—Now We Reload for 2026
The November 2025 results hit hard—here and nationwide. A communist elected mayor of New York City. Key races lost across the country. And right here in Maine, common-sense Voter ID (Question 1) crushed by Shenna Bellows’ deliberate ballot sabotage, and a dangerous red-flag law (Question 2) passed in the name of “safety” that law enforcement—the very people who risk their lives for us—say makes Maine less safe, especially for them.Let’s be clear: this isn’t new. Last year when Trump won the presidency, we still lost the House, the Senate, and far too much ground here in Maine. I’m deeply grateful for President Trump—he’s locked in a brutal fight against globalists, a corrupt Congress, and entrenched power. But we cannot, must not, think his victory fixes everything, especially not here. If we’re going to redeem our country—and our state—we have to do the work. Trump is fighting his battle. We have to fight ours.
The Charlie Kirk Assassination: A Wake-Up Call, Not an Instant Fix
In the wake of Charlie Kirk’s assassination, many of us hoped—prayed—that the sheer evil of the act, combined with the grotesque response from parts of the Left, would jolt people awake. That they’d finally see the moral rot on the other side and walk away. And we did see sparks: social media flooded with people posting that they’d changed parties and were voting Republican. Church attendance spiked. People made public decisions to follow Jesus. TPUSA chapters exploded across the country.We hoped that energy would show up in yesterday’s elections. It didn’t—at least not in the voting records. And honestly? We shouldn’t have expected it to. What Charlie’s death did do was activate people. The conservative evangelical church is awakening to politics in a way we haven’t seen in decades. TPUSA is equipping a generation. That momentum will matter—but not overnight. And especially not here in Maine, one of the oldest states in the union (if not the oldest). Demographic reality means cultural shifts hit us slower. That’s just math.
Question 1: Sabotage, Not Defeat
Let’s talk specifics. Maine has one of the highest absentee voting rates in the country. Shenna Bellows knew that. She weaponized the ballot language on Question 1—twisting a simple Voter ID measure into something that sounded like voter suppression on steroids. Aging voters, already anxious, saw the wording and panicked. They voted No—not because they oppose secure elections, but because they were lied to.Even leaders of the Yes on 1 campaign admitted: Maine’s elections are already secure. This wasn’t about fixing fraud—it was about strengthening trust. So yes, losing hurts. But it’s not the apocalypse. Elections will continue as they have. And every senior who voted No because they feared disenfranchisement? That lie came straight from Bellows and the Democrats. That’s fuel. We use it. We hammer them with it. Every town hall, every op-ed, every door knock between now and 2026.
Question 2: A Constitutional Violation—But Not the Final Word
Question 2 is a gut punch. A red-flag law that violates the Second Amendment, ignores due process, and—according to the very cops who will enforce it—makes Maine less safe. But here’s the silver lining: this thing is ripe for a court challenge. The legal flaws are glaring. There’s a strong chance it never becomes law. Time will tell—but we don’t roll over. We fund the lawsuits. We stand with law enforcement. We make this a rallying cry.
No Circular Firing Squad. Period.
Now, the choice: do we turn on each other?
Do we blame the people who wrote Question 1 for not making it “bulletproof”?
Do we point fingers at Jason Savage, Jim Deyermond, the new comms director?
Do we whine about how the movement isn’t “unified enough”?
No.That’s exactly what the Left wants. Shenna Bellows doesn’t care about democratic process. She doesn’t care about informed voters. I am 100% confident that no matter how Question 1 was written, she would’ve twisted it into “Do you want to kick puppies and silence grandmas?” We’d still have lost. Blaming our own team for her sabotage is not just unhelpful—it’s dishonest.This is the state of Republican politics in Maine right now: someone proposes something good, the Democrat Secretary of State torches it with election interference, and then we eat our own? Hell no.
The Truth: We Fought Like Hell
I was worried we’d fracture—blame the question drafters, sit back, and watch it burn. We didn’t.
From the Maine GOP to legislators, from gubernatorial candidates to grassroots warriors—we went all in.
Yes on 1. No on 2.
Door knocks. Text messages. Lawn signs. Emails. Ads. Social media. Earned media.
We preached it everywhere.It wasn’t for lack of effort. The deck was stacked—absentee manipulation, fear-driven seniors, a lying Secretary of State, and a low-turnout election in a light-blue state. We gave it everything we had with the resources available. And we still got outworked by the machine.But that doesn’t mean we quit.
Why 2026 Is Still Ours to Win
We need to keep some hard truths in mind—and then turn them into strategy.
This was a low-turnout, off-year election.
Low-propensity voters—our base—don’t show up. That’s just data.Maine is light blue, not red. Not yet.
CD2 is reddish-purple. The rest? Light blue. We’re not Texas. We’re not even New Hampshire. Accepting that isn’t defeatism—it’s clarity.Trump lost Maine by 6.5% in 2024—with zero campaign spend here.
He won CD2. 6.5% isn’t insurmountable. An actual campaign—Collins-level organization, real money, real presence—changes the math. The gubernatorial race is in play.Susan Collins is on the ballot in 2026—facing either a socialist (Graham Platner) or Janet Mills.
Our base may grumble about Collins. But they hate socialism and Mills more. And they know Trump needs her in the Senate if his agenda is going to outlast executive orders. They’ll show up.No incumbent governor + Collins on the ticket = historic turnout (for a non-presidential year).
More money in GOTV. More low-propensity conservatives voting. That’s our edge.We don’t win on social issues in blue-ish states. We win on the economy.
Question 1 and 2? Social-adjacent. Important? Yes. Winnable here? Not yet.
But energy costs, food prices, property taxes, rent, home prices—those are the issues that hit every Mainer in the wallet.
The Democrats created these crises. They have no answers.
2026 is an economic referendum. That’s our lane. That’s how we win.
The Long Game Is Working
Charlie Kirk’s death didn’t flip Maine overnight. But it did light a fuse.
New TPUSA chapters. Packed churches. Party-switchers. A generation waking up.
That’s not a sprint—it’s a relay. And we’re passing the baton.We don’t need blame.
We don’t need despair.
We need relentless focus:
Expose Bellows. Every lie. Every interference.
Win on the economy. Hammer it. Every day.
Turn out every conservative voter in 2026. No excuses.
Trump is fighting in D.C.
We fight in Maine. No surrender. No infighting. Just work.
See you at the doors.
