"He told us that he worked in Democratic politics, and because my wife and I care about both politics and the state where she grew up, it was both intriguing and a bit strange to learn from this man that a candidate had already been chosen to run against Maine's reliably Deeply Concerned and long-tenured Republican Sen. Susan Collins in the fall of 2020."
"It didn't go well. Gideon raised and spent many millions of dollars, much of it from out of state; the campaign was still sending fundraising emails on Election Day, and Mainers talked about Gideon campaign mailers arriving in their inboxes daily, in duplicate or triplicate. In the end, Gideon spent $62.9 million, more than twice what Collins spent, and lost the election by nearly 9 percentage points. After the end, Gideon's campaign still had $14.8 million on hand."
Sara Gideon, the speaker of Maine's House of Representatives, received an early DSCC endorsement and became the Democratic nominee to challenge Republican Sen. Susan Collins in 2020. Gideon's campaign raised and spent many millions, with substantial out-of-state funding, and saturated voters with fundraising emails and duplicated mailers. The campaign spent $62.9 million—more than twice Collins's spending—and still lost by nearly nine percentage points, leaving $14.8 million on hand after the election. Critics described the effort as symptomatic of national, consultant-driven, one-size-fits-all Democratic strategies that relied heavily on advertising and centralized management rather than localized tactics.
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