How can progressives win in rural US? CHLOE MAXMIN & CANYON WOODWARD, DIRT ROAD REVIVAL
Written on July 14th, 2022When the American electoral system was created, over 95% of Americans lived in rural communities. Today fewer than 20% do. The 20 senators from the 10 most populous states – home to half the US population – make up only a fifth of the US Senate. When, the solution to minority rule, exemplified by the Senate filibuster and the radical 6-3 Supreme Court, is to vote – then finding a successful way to connect with, win over, and represent rural voters is more essential than ever. CHLOE MAXMIN, a progressive, has won two elections to the state legislature in rural Maine. In DIRT ROAD REVIVAL, she and campaign manager CANYON WOODWARD share their approach to reversing the slide of rural voters to the GOP.
At 28, CHLOE MAXMIN defeated the minority leader of Maine’s State Senate. Her secret? She listens.
Written on January 29th, 2021In college, CHLOE MAXMIN co-founded the Divest Harvard campaign calling on the university to divest from fossil fuels. After graduating in 2015, she returned home to rural Maine, and In 2018 was elected to Maine’s House of Representatives, in a district that had voted Republican by a 16-point margin over the past three elections. In November, at 28 and after one term in the House, she defeated the incumbent minority leader to move to the State Senate. Chloe Maxmin bucks the obstacles to living democracy by focusing her energies on listening to the citizens she represents and then representing them. Today this is fairly radical behavior, radical in its simplicity and its potential.
