Jordan Wood has been campaigning throughout Maine, first as a Senate candidate and now to succeed Rep. Jared Golden. At every town hall, the crowd has mostly been people over the age of 60, he said.
Maine has the oldest electorate in the country. It’s also home to one of the highest-profile races of the 2026 midterms.
“I feel pretty confident in saying I believe that it is the most important demographic in this election in determining the outcome, especially in the midterms,” Wood said of his race.
Older, white, educated voters, the demographic that makes up a large swath of Maine’s electorate, is a group that has consistently moved away from President Donald Trump each election.
They are “the most important voting bloc in Maine,” Wood said.
Seniors are already shaping how the parties are thinking about campaigning as they begin to craft their platforms for the midterms.
Issues like Social Security, health care and even child care — for those who are taking care of their grandchildren due to rising child care costs — will play big roles in the major races of 2026, party operatives and candidates told NOTUS.
When Republican Paul LePage was governor, he vetoed Medicaid expansion several times because the Maine Legislature would not fund the state’s share of the expansion.
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Democrats have their own message on Social Security: That the Trump administration disrupted operations through its DOGE initiative, and that Republicans have backed privatizing the program.
Wood supports eliminating the income map to produce more revenue for the program.
Wood also pointed to child care as an important issue for seniors because many of them serve as caregivers for their grandchildren due to the high costs of child care centers. He supports a universal child care program that would cap costs at $10 a day per child.