It started with a simple curiosity. A friend, Bobby Charles, was stepping up to run for Governor of Maine. I like Bobby—respect his public service, admire his convictions but I knew little about the state he hoped to lead. Sure, I knew the postcards: lobster shacks, rocky harbors, red and gold foliage. But I didn’t know the stories behind the boarded-up mills or why some of the safest towns in America now talk about syringes in playgrounds. I took a few weeks to find out.

And what I discovered shook me.

Maine didn’t just decline. It was dismantled.

Over the course of five decades, entire lifelines of this proud state were severed. Paper mills, once the economic heartbeat of towns like Millinocket, Rumford, and Jay, collapsed one by one. These weren’t abstract losses, these were the anchors of whole communities. The Great Northern mill in Millinocket paid 70% of the town’s taxes before it shut for good in 2008. Today, it’s a mausoleum of industry. Since 1990, the town has lost over a third of its population. Business are closing, investment projects promised and abandoned, local news covers frustrated residents with little hope and low expectations.

Trade policies like NAFTA and China’s WTO entry weren’t just political footnotes; they were executioners. Maine lost over 30,000 factory jobs. Manufacturing, which once made up 20% of the state’s jobs, now accounts for less than 9%. Every closed mill was a cascading tragedy: loggers lost contracts, rail lines dried up, tax bases crumbled, schools and hospitals shrank. The vacuum left behind wasn’t just economic. It was spiritual.

And into that void came fentanyl.

I read that Maine had 716 overdose deaths in 2022—more than any previous year, more than car accidents or suicides. Two Mainers die every single day from drugs. In Portland alone, in a single 24-hour stretch, 14 people overdosed.

These aren’t isolated tragedies. They’re part of a system. Mexican cartels view Maine as a lucrative market. Drug gangs from New York and Massachusetts set up shop in the homes of addicted Mainers, transforming them into trap houses. The state is awash in a lethal mix of fentanyl, xylazine, and despair.

Children suffer. Over 60% of cases where children are removed from homes involve parental drug abuse. Foster care numbers have surged. Grandparents are raising grandkids. Nightmarishly, schools are now administering Narcan. It’s not just teachers; under a state law passed last year, students themselves are now being trained to administer it. In Maine classrooms, kids are being prepared to save classmates from fatal overdoses.

Imagine the trauma: A first grader whose father OD’d last week. A middle school student being trained to administer a life saving dose, because the epidemic reaches down a generation.

Maine used to call itself the safest state in America. Not anymore.

Property crimes have surged. Retail theft is so rampant Maine ranks amongst the highest in the country. Reports show the number one product stolen is, you guessed it, Liquor. Even small shop owners are locking up toothpaste and deodorant. Police in towns like Portland and Bangor are short dozens of officers. Rural sheriff departments are understaffed. And prosecutors, under the banner of reform, are allowing chronic offenders to walk.

A proposed 2024 bill would have made it nearly impossible to charge repeat shoplifters with felonies unless they stole over $500 worth of product. It was vetoed. But the fact it passed the legislature at all tells you where things are heading.

The justice system is now a revolving door. Arrested in the morning, back on the street by night. There’s no deterrent. Just dread.

While the crisis deepened, the state expanded its safety net.

MaineCare (Medicaid) was expanded in 2019. Nearly one in three Mainers is now on government healthcare. Nearly half of the state’s children are on MaineCare – and House Democrats see this as a good thing. Food stamps and disability rolls are high. But even as these programs grew, the workforce shrank. Maine has one of the lowest labor participation rates in America.

It’s the same tired playbook. Democratic policies erode work incentives, fracture families, and then usher in government as the supposed savior. The solution? Enroll the desperate into taxpayer-funded programs that breed dependency. And when Republicans propose reforms to restore self-reliance, to reverse the perverse incentives, to stop the abuse of a broken cycle – they’re accused of “cutting benefits for those in need.” The answer from the left is always more spending, more taxes, more of the very policies that created the crisis in the first place. And then they double down.

Small businesses can’t find workers. Employers report applicants turning down jobs to keep benefits. Maine’s poverty rate is the highest in New England; its median income, the lowest. The state is aging, young people are fleeing, and those who remain are increasingly reliant on aid.

What happened to the ethic of work? What happened to building things, fixing things, fishing, farming, and logging – the crafts that defined this place?

The sheer absurdity of Maine’s trajectory defies belief:

• A state with the richest forests in the Northeast now imports wood products.
• A coastline famed for fish now strangles its lobstermen with regulations.
• A state that once fed the region now has kids going hungry in homes ruined by addiction.
• A town once called “The Magic City” (Millinocket) is now better known for unemployment and decay.

It is outrageous.

But Maine is not a lost cause.

In Brunswick, a shuttered naval base became a hub for aerospace and biotech. In Lewiston, old mills are turning into breweries and biotech plants. Portland has become a tech and food destination. The talent is here. The values are here. But leadership has failed.

This is the real Maine story: not just of decline, but of betrayal—by political elites, bad trade deals, and complacent bureaucracy. And now, a tipping point.

A new leader must speak plainly: Maine must choose work over welfare, safety over slogans, prosperity over pity. They must stop coddling criminals, stop incentivizing idleness, and start investing in the people who build and defend their communities – the veterans, the working moms, the millworkers, the forgotten. These seem like simple concepts; obvious even. Unfortunately long gone are the days of common sense.

Bobby Charles sees this. That’s why he’s running, and it’s about time. Maine doesn’t need a savior. It needs a reckoning.

I didn’t know Maine, but now I can’t look away. Good luck Bobby.