The 2026 midterms represent something of a sea change in American electoral politics. The Democratic Party has taken a wide swath of victories across the country, including in Maine. The Maine Campus spoke with students in order to ascertain the student reactions to the midterm results.
The Maine Campus interviewed Noah Bubier, a third-year earth and climate studies student from Ellsworth.
“I thought that it was very likely that the Democrats would take the House of Representatives and the Senate. What I did not expect was how much was won over the threshold,” Bubier said. “When I found out, I was just about to cry. It’s so important that we defeated all of the extremists running the government… they don’t have anything to offer the American people, and so it’s really important for democracy that they be defeated.”
Bubier spoke at length about the importance of getting money out of politics, the party leadership and the nature of the democratic results in Maine.
“The state of Maine did not have nearly as large of a swing as the rest of the country. I think it’s somewhat worrying but also somewhat to be expected. The Democratic wins were not, I would say, driven by anything that they necessarily did — at least not the party leadership. They’ve really been absent and actually almost sabotaging some of their candidates in states like Florida,” added Bubier.
He raised additional concerns about the party’s leadership, particularly Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries.
“What needs to come next is literally anybody other than Schumer or Hakeem Jeffries. Beyond my disagreements with their particular politics — Schumer’s support of AIPAC, for instance — they’re also just incompetent. I feel like just having somebody more coherent at the helm would do a lot to improve the brand of the party nationally.”
Bubier named Chris Van Hollen as one possible viable replacement for Schumer in particular.
He also stated that he hoped to see the party implement more wide-ranging reforms a la Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal program, and suggested that the future president to implement these reforms may need to go even further than Roosevelt.
The Maine Campus also interviewed Brayden Vance, a third-year French and parks, recreation and tourism student from San Antonio, Texas.
“I think for the state of Maine, I hope these results mean easier transport of goods across the border. I hope it’s not going to mean things like higher energy prices as things keep going up,” they said. “I would say nationally, it’s going to make it easier for working families to get the support and funding that they need. I don’t expect new legislation to be passed to expand that funding, but I do think this could be a ‘stop-the-bleed’ measure.”
Vance also spoke about environmental policy and expressed some doubts about the viability of aggressive policy towards extraction economies, which they defined as any industry which is predicated on extracting natural resources from the environment. They argued that regulation would be a more practical approach.
“I do think the first thing we need to start doing is passing legislation to protect our old growth forests, protect our ecosystems and from living around the D.C. area, continuing a crabbing and oyster economy, but a responsible crabbing and oyster economy that can exist for generations… It’s vital to my local community, and these things being adopted nationally is vital to the continued health of our extraction economy, which it looks like is something that the American populace wants to start engaging with,” said Vance.
Within the domain of electoral politics, Vance stressed the importance of focusing on candidates with political backgrounds who would be able to communicate thoughtfully and intentionally with the international community and their constituents, and lamented what they called “cults of personality” in political discourse.
“When it comes to making political choices moving forward, we need to be smarter than we were last time. If you believe something strongly enough that you’re going to single issue vote it, you need to be able to explain the numbers of it, you need to be able to explain the policy surrounding it and you need to explain what your candidate will do moving forward,” Vance said.
