JUDY WOODRUFF: As much of the country has solidified its partisan divide, one state
stood out for its bipartisan vote.
Our Jeffrey Brown explores what's different about Maine, and what it can teach us about
the rest of the country.
JEFFREY BROWN: This is what Bill Green knows best, showing off Maine's great outdoors in
front of a camera. And on a picture-perfect December day, I joined him for some skeet-shooting.
OK, pull.
BILL GREEN, Former Television Host: You did it! Awesome!
(LAUGHTER)
JEFFREY BROWN: Green is a celebrity here in Maine, longtime host of the popular television
program "Bill Green's Maine."
BILL GREEN: Every Saturday night at 7:00, we will be checking out a different part of
the Pine Tree State.
JEFFREY BROWN: But, this year, he got in front of a camera to do something he's never done:
Endorse a political candidate.
BILL GREEN: No matter who you're voting for, for president, Susan Collins has never been
more important to Maine.
JEFFREY BROWN: Green was aiming for an increasingly rare political phenomenon, split-ticket voting.
He stepped into the middle of a hard-fought Senate race between incumbent Republican Susan
Collins and Democratic challenger Sara Gideon.
Enormous amounts of money, more than $180 million, poured into the race, much of it
from outside. In the end, Maine went as Bill Green hoped, for Democrat Joe Biden and Republican
Susan Collins.
Based on what you know about this independent streak in Maine, did it make sense, what happened
this time?
BILL GREEN: Yes. I think Mainers are really independent. I mean, look around. You have
to take care of yourself a little bit. And we're having fun out here in front of a fire,
but we had to build the fire.
JEFFREY BROWN: Yes.
BILL GREEN: We had to shovel the deck. No one's coming to do that for us.
I think what goes on in Washington doesn't have too much to do with me. Politics should
be local. And the big name brands, Republicans and Democrats, that came in and upset our
system and upset our state, I think, were wrong.
JEFFREY BROWN: If the idea of local still means something in Maine, you can see some
of the economic changes and political impact in the rural north, like here in Millinocket,
once one of the nation's leading mill towns.
The mill opened in 1900. The town grew with it and became known as the Magic City. At
its peak in the 1970s, the Great Northern Paper Company employed more than 2,000 people
here. But the mill closed in 2008. The town's population dwindled and aged. Main Street
is now peppered with closed businesses.
Jimmy Busque worked in the mill and is a former town councillor. A few days after my visit,
speaking via Skype, he told me, when he was growing up, Millinocket really was the Magic
City.
JIMMY BUSQUE, Former Millinocket Town Council Member: It was a great, great place to grow
up. Everybody knew everybody. We had a population of that was double what it is now. It was
a lot of big families, a lot a lot of kids. Everybody had money.
JEFFREY BROWN: Politically, this area was once reliably blue, but that's changed. Unlike
most states, Maine splits its electoral votes by congressional districts.
And, in 2016, Donald Trump won the 2nd Congressional, which includes Millinocket, making him the
first Republican since 1988 to gain an electoral vote here. He won the district again this
year.
The Democrats, why did they lose strength there in your part of the world?
JIMMY BUSQUE: I think they lost touch with the people. The Democrat Party, growing up,
was -- seemed to be more for the working class. And I think it's kind of turned now. I think
now the Democrats have lost touch with the average person, and President Trump brought
the Republican Party, turned it right around.
JEFFREY BROWN: What is it about his message that resonated for so many people, do you
think?
JIMMY BUSQUE: One of the issues here in Maine that he did that I couldn't see a Democrat
do it is when he abolished the federal marine monument on the coast. It saved a lot of fishing
jobs.
JEFFREY BROWN: Local issues rule here, Busque says, and have led to divisions just like
in the rest of the country.
JIMMY BUSQUE: It's always been said there's two Maines, and I firmly believe there is
two Maines.
JEFFREY BROWN: And are there two Americas, when you look out now?
JIMMY BUSQUE: Well, it definitely -- it's the same idea of rural America and your urban
America. And I feel that we have lost our country -- we definitely lost our country
when we started losing our small towns.
JEFFREY BROWN: If there are two Maines, the other can be found in Portland. It's the largest
city in the state and a Democratic stronghold on the coast. In recent years, it's become
something of a hip tourist destination, with a hot foodie scene that includes the Portland
Hunt and Alpine Club.
It's owned by Briana Volk and her husband and has been named one of the best cocktail
bars in America. Volk is originally from Oregon. She moved here about 10 years ago.
BRIANA VOLK, Co-Owner, Portland Hunt and Alpine Club: We're so close to the ocean. Our farmers
are doing amazing things. And how could you not be a foodie town when you have so much
access to so many great things?
JEFFREY BROWN: Now, of course, the pandemic is devastating hers and other local businesses.
It's just one reason Volk, progressive in her politics, got involved this election cycle,
even publishing a cocktail book, "Collins Against Collins," to raise money for down-ballot
Democrats.
BRIANA VOLK: There are rights of so many of our fellow neighbors on the table and at risk,
that that was absolutely frightening to me.
Watching the response from the pandemic from the federal administration showed me that
they had no idea what they were doing, and they are letting thousands upon thousands
of people die, and don't seem to care.
JEFFREY BROWN: What did the election results here in Maine tell you about Maine and about
the country?
BRIANA VOLK: I think we are, as a country, politically divided.
I grew up in a rural community, and there would be issues that people would disagree
on politically, but there would be, like, these community conversations about it. And
you would still go to the grocery store the next day and say hi to that person, whether
you disagreed with them or not. And we have just lost so much of that.
JEFFREY BROWN: Back in the north, Jimmy Busque isn't so sure there is a way forward.
Do you see any ways to help bridge this divide?
JIMMY BUSQUE: I'm not sure. I don't know how to go that direction, how to how to fix that.
I'm not sure.
JEFFREY BROWN: But when I asked Bill Green about the notion of two Maines, he rejected
the idea.
BILL GREEN: I won't subscribe to two Maines, because it's so insulting. There are haves
and have-nots here, like everywhere else. And if you have, you have got a great life
going. And if you don't, you're fighting for opportunity for you and your children. I want
there to be one Maine.
JEFFREY BROWN: Warmed by a winter fire, Green says he's for divided government.
BILL GREEN: Not just civility, but reasonableness. I want them to come together and have to talk
about it. And I want them to give and take a little bit and move forward together incrementally,
to have to fight through issues and do what's best for the most people.
JEFFREY BROWN: It's a way of thinking increasingly rare in a polarized America, but, at least
in Maine, this election, it's what seems to have won out.
For the "PBS NewsHour," I'm Jeffrey Brown in the Pine Tree State of Maine.