Friends,
My promise to you is always that we’ll only ask for money when we need it. So when after just 2 weeks you donated more than $13,000 to Craig Hickman for the Maine Senate, we paused nudging you on Give Smart, because that amount was close to filling their budget gaps. Now that the election is in two days, we can officially conclude our special election fundraiser because we know that we raised just the right amount of money for his campaign. Congrats to everyone, we did it! (Yes, really, that’s it. Great job, Have you ever received a fundraising email like this before?)
Win or lose, your donations made sure the Hickman campaign hit its ideal budget, which meant it could pay for television and radio ads. Money never guarantees a victory, especially in the races where we intervene (the closest ones), but it ensures if a victory is possible, the candidate can fully compete.
The only thing left to do, unless you want to volunteer for Craig’s campaign here, is to watch the election results come on Tuesday night. I’ll be tweeting them out from FNF’s Twitter account so please follow it if you don’t already.
As you know, the district is very close politically, flipping from supporting Trump by 2% in 2016 to backing Biden by 1% in 2020. There are 11 towns in the district and here’s how they voted in the presidential race in 2020:
Basically we’ll be checking to make sure Hickman hits those Biden numbers as results come in. Notably he’s from Winthrop and his deep roots in the community and existing electoral base there should help him win votes in the district’s most populous town.
But as you can see there are some strongly Republican areas of the districts as well. Early return rates on absentee votes have been encouraging but this is likely to be a close race. How close is tough to say, but your donations ensured that Craig is positioned to win the biggest special election of the year so far.
Best,
Aaron
{Future Now Fund’s Director of Give Smart}
Photo courtesy of Hickman in the Senate Facebook page
