The small Maine district Trump has become obsessed with during the election

In this year’s presidential election, my rural state of Maine — where we have more trees than people and a farm stand on nearly every corner — has somehow become a battleground state. And last week, a visit from President Donald Trump in recognition of this fact put our state at risk of a Covid spike.

In 1972, Maine divided its electoral college votes into two districts. The first district includes our biggest city of Portland, and the second district — the district I live in — is more rural. In all of the years since Maine split its electoral votes, there has been just one time that the electoral votes were split: in 2016. Hillary Clinton won three of the state’s electoral votes, and Donald Trump won one. And, in 2020, in such a tight electoral race, Trump has become obsessed with that one vote.

In the last few weeks, several members of the Trump team have visited our state, but the largest event by far was a Trump visit on Sunday.

With days to go before the election, the president traveled to a family farm and orchard, Treworgy Orchard, in the Bangor area, a farm that is a tourist destination and mainstay for locals buying berries, picking apples, and posing for pictures with pumpkins. Trump’s visit to the small farm drew a crowd of approximately 3,000 people. Many were not wearing masks. All were crowded together and packed tightly. All were violating Maine state restrictions on crowd size due to Covid-19. Right now, outdoor crowds are not supposed to exceed 100 people.

For all of us in Maine who have worked so hard to lock down, to stay home, to wear our masks when we do go out, it was worse than a slap in the face. Trump’s visit not only puts people in our community at risk of a Covid spike, it also mocks the sacrifices so many of us have made for these long months. And it may be counterproductive to his own campaign: As coronavirus cases spread in rural areas which previously had low rates of infection, Republican voters are finding themselves less likely than they were earlier in the year to say restrictions are overrated and Trump is doing a good job of handling the pandemic.

We have all made sacrifices to keep our state safe. My youngest child has not been able to see his friends since orchestra was cancelled. He’s extremely lonely. I have only seen my oldest child outdoors and six feet away. I haven’t hugged my oldest child since March. As a mother, I am heartbroken, but we all keep doing the hard work.

We shut down our schools in March and opened them carefully and in September. With two major universities in our area, there was concern that we might see a spike once campuses opened, but we did not. Our teachers and students have been careful and consistent about wearing masks.  

But, like so many states, Maine’s Covid cases have been going up in the last week. In the last several days, we have seen the highest number of new cases in our state since the pandemic began. Trump’s potential super-spreader event could not have come at a worse time, and many Mainers are worried and angry.

Our community learned the day before his arrival that Trump was planning to make a stop in Bangor, after a trip to New Hampshire. But, apparently, it was only that day that the Trump team contacted Treworgy Orchard about making a visit to the farm. When pictures of the event hit the internet, the grave reality of the situation began to set in. The pictures showed thousands of people, packed together, many without masks.

In a preemptive effort, Treworgy posted to their website and Facebook page the day of Trump’s visit, emphasizing they would welcome any president and asserting thatb the visit was not political; however, as more pictures of the event emerged, criticism of the potential super-spreader situation became heated. In a follow-up statement with local press, Treworgy said they regretted the event grew so large and that attendees did not follow mask-wearing or social distancing protocols.

Unfortunately, regret is not helpful. Studies have shown that half of the counties where Trump rallies were held showed upticks in Covid cases after the rallies. Dr Nirav Shah, director of the Maine CDC, said last week that we have yet to see any new cases related to Trump’s visit — but also said it is too early to tell.

We do not yet know the price we will pay for Trump’s visit to our community, for his quest for our district’s one electoral vote, for his extreme need for a crowd of approval. But many of us here in Maine will have one more worry as we wait to find out.