OXFORD – Every day for the past several months, Mike Ward has heard a version of the same story from customers who come into Polly’s, a variety store popular with locals.

“People are tired of high oil and gas prices, tired of food prices, tired of electricity costs being high,” he said. “They are not sure how they are going to be able to pay their bills and eat and get their medication. I hear that every day.”

As he was talking, a young woman overheard the conversation and jumped in.

“I paid $5 for an ice cream sandwich the other day,” she said. “Think about that.”

Ward has lived in Oxford most of his life. He was a longtime police officer, retiring as chief earlier this year, only to take a part-time job at Polly’s in part to blunt the impact of increasing costs everywhere he looks.

“What’s the solution? I don’t have an answer for that,” he said. “Because it’s more than one problem.”

Oxford is a mostly rural town of 4,000 residents in Western Maine, a place best known to non-locals for its racetrack or its casino, or as a pass-through on the way to ski resorts. Route 26 cuts the town in half and is where much of the commercial activity happens. In the last few years, multiple marijuana storefronts have opened, earning that stretch a nickname around town: “The Green Mile.”

Oxford is also one of Maine’s most conservative communities, politically speaking. When former Gov. Paul LePage won reelection in 2014, he carried the town with 66 percent support. The Republican candidate in 2018, Shawn Moody, received 57 percent of votes, while Mills got 30 percent. To win again and return to the job he held for eight often tumultuous years, LePage will need a similarly strong showing in Oxford and many other towns with similar demographic profiles.

In conversations with voters in Oxford over two days this month, LePage remains the clear favorite. Overwhelmingly, people in this town echoed the economic anxiety Ward hears daily. Most don’t rank abortion rights or immigration or threats to democracy high on the list of things that matter to them because they don’t have to reckon with them daily. The economy, on the other hand, is something they feel constantly. And when the economy is bad, people look for someone to blame. That often means whichever party is in power.

“I think they want whoever is going to keep costs down, who’s going to keep taxes down, and that’s LePage,” said Caldwell “Caldie” Jackson, 71, a local farmer and selectman who worked for a time in the state Department of Agriculture under LePage, and under current Gov. Janet Mills, too. Now, he spends his days at his farm stand, where he sells produce.

“I’ve noticed it in my business, people not buying as much as they used to,” he said. “Their dollar just doesn’t stretch. And I kind of feel sorry for them.”

For many in Oxford, though, simply having an “R” next to a candidate’s name is enough. Jackson, for example, is running for an open seat in the House of Representatives. He’s running unopposed, which speaks volumes to how Democrats view their chances in this community.

Still, despite Oxford’s strong base of reliably Republican voters, there are people who don’t view LePage’s eight years as governor with reverence.

Kathy and Albert Roberti, a retired couple, were asked about the upcoming election while they waited for breakfast at Daddy O’s diner, a busy eatery in a strip mall on the northern end of town. Both commended Mills for her leadership during the pandemic. As for LePage, they said his philosophy of governing – especially his desire to cut services – left a lot of people vulnerable.

“And the way he talks to people …” Kathy said.

“He talks to people like he doesn’t respect them,” Al finished.

COST OF LIVING CONCERNS

Aaron Ouellette owns Daddy O’s with his wife, Amanda. Both are active in the community and their diner has developed a reputation as a place where locals gather. The inside of the restaurant is covered wall to wall with license plates and filled with constant chatter.

Ouellette said he’s always careful when talking politics with customers.

“I want everyone to feel like they are welcome in here,” he said.

As a small business owner, though, Ouellette said he hasn’t been as happy with Gov. Mills’ policies in the last few years. He was especially critical of her handling of the pandemic.

“I just don’t think she listened to businesses about what they needed,” he said. “I know she was trying to keep people safe and had to make decisions, but businesses struggled.”

Others in town also characterized Mills’ approach to the pandemic as too heavy-handed, even though nearly every other governor in the country was forced to make tough decisions that would affect businesses. Maine’s rate of death throughout the pandemic is the 6th-lowest in the country, despite being among the oldest states.

Voters also don’t like that Mills spent so much money during the pandemic, although when asked how they thought the money should be spent, most didn’t have an easy answer.

Paula and Norm Davis of Poland, just south of Oxford, also were having breakfast at Daddy O’s. Both identified as conservative and said they are likely to support LePage in this year’s race.

Norm said he’s tired of seeing so much money given away during the pandemic and thinks LePage will be more fiscally prudent.

“I don’t think she’s done anything right,” he said of Mills. “The (relief) checks she sent everyone. I think she was just buying votes. Why not spend that money on education or infrastructure.”

In fact, Mills has fully funded education at 55 percent for the first time in state history and used more than $100 million in surplus funds to pay for transportation projects.

There is also a strong bitterness about the workforce challenges plaguing Oxford (and almost every other community in Maine and beyond).

“It blows my mind how many people who were working before the pandemic aren’t working now,” Jackson said. “What are they doing?”

Many believe that Mills’ policies are keeping people from wanting to work. They say she gives too many handouts, and they remember how tough LePage was on welfare reform.

At the core of their beliefs, many who identified as conservative or Republican in Oxford said they just want government to have a smaller role in their lives. The town is rural, the people in it more likely to have working class jobs and less likely to have college degrees – all traits consistent with their rightward lean.

“I want LePage back in, but he could probably use a handler,” said Ouellette, acknowledging the former governor’s penchant for saying incendiary things that overshadowed his actual policies and achievements. “When he was there, I felt like I could make my own choices.”

This year’s race for governor is unique in that the top two candidates (independent Sam Hunkler, a physician in Washington County, also is on the ballot) have such high name-recognition, and both have a record to either agree with or poke holes in.

Willie Rice, 69, a retired fire chief, said that like most people he’s noticed the increasing cost of just about everything, including his regular meals at Daddy O’s.

“It’s not about blaming someone for it at this point, it’s about who can help,” he said. He’s not sure who that is.

TIRED OF DIVISIVENESS

Another thing that came up frequently in conversations with voters in Oxford was polarization – how national conversations about almost every topic have forced people to pick a side.

Shirley Desjardins, 76, a retired widow, lives alone in a mobile home a few miles off the main road. Her life is a simple one, she said. But every time she picks up the paper or turns on the TV, she feels like she’s being encouraged to get angry, to blame someone.

“I don’t want to hate Janet Mills and I don’t want to hate Paul LePage,” she said outside Smedberg’s, a farm stand on Route 26. “I just want to feel like whoever is in there is trying to do right by everyone.”

Ward, the retired police chief, said he grew up in a Democratic family but doesn’t identify with either party anymore. He said despite Oxford’s strong Republican base, “I think people are looking for a sensible person, someone who is going to do what’s right.”

“LePage still has a lot of support, from what I hear,” he added.

Voter registration data doesn’t really tell the story. Republicans outnumber Democrats 1,196-734, according to the Maine Secretary of State’s Office, but unenrolled voters make up the biggest bloc, 39 percent.

Judging from voting trends over the last several years, many of those unenrolled voters are aligned with Republicans.

Zoe Dyer, 18, graduated from Oxford Hills High School a few months ago. She’s not sure what she wants to do yet, so she’s been working at Polly’s Variety. She and Ward are two people on opposite ends of the age spectrum.

This is the first year she’s old enough to vote, but Dyer admitted she’s not paying close attention. Like others, she’s concerned about rising costs, but she doesn’t know if either candidate can really do much about that.

“I think I’d have to do more research,” she said, allowing for the possibility that she may not even vote at all.

Birch Adams, 38, co-owns Oxbow Brewing with her husband. They opened a location in Oxford – their third – three and a half years ago, on Route 26 on the south end of town.

Adams said she and most of her friends are concerned a great deal about women’s rights in light of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision this summer that struck down the long-held precedent in Roe v. Wade.

“We put up a Planned Parenthood sign in front of our house in Portland and then we were talking about putting one up here (in Oxford),” she said. “And we just wondered how that would fly here. We want to be open to all people. People are so divided right now, there aren’t a lot of spaces that really welcome everyone.”

In the end, they decided not to put up a sign.

The landscape in Oxford is unlikely to change dramatically between now and Election Day. LePage’s support here appears solid.

Carl Polvinen, 72, was drinking a beer at the bar inside The Honey Badger, a restaurant that overlooks Oxford Plains Speedway. It’s another popular spot for locals.

Polvinen said he voted for LePage before and likely will again.

But he opened up the possibility that Mills might still get his vote.

“She hasn’t done nothing to hurt me,” he said.

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