On Nov. 3, thousands of people across the United States voted in the 2026 midterm election. This election resulted in an outstanding win for the Democratic Party; Democrats secured the Senate and House on a federal level, and the governorship in Maine by a vast majority of votes.
In the Senate election, Democrat Troy Jackson defeated Republican incumbent Susan Collins. This is particularly notable, changing Maine’s U.S. Senate seat from Republican to Democrat after former senator Collins held it for almost 30 years.
The national voter turnout was 52 percent. Moreover, this election marked a sky-high voter turnout for Maine specifically, with a record 74 percent of eligible voters participating.
Leading up to the past midterm election, Colby Votes, a non-partisan organization, remarkably contributed to supporting and encouraging voting on campus and in the wider Waterville community. Colby Votes was established in 2019 and is run by the Office of Civic Engagement. A cohort of paid student fellows work as campus organizers and voting captains, and student volunteers lead the program in four main sectors: events, outreach, volunteer management, and social media.
Colby Votes Fellow Anthony Simescu `27 discussed the goal of Colby Votes by emphasizing outreach: “Colby Votes doesn’t exist just because voting information is so, like, just everywhere; it’s a commonplace thing. Our goal really is to eventually be able to reach everybody, every student on campus, and get them the information they need,” Simescu said. We want to create a more institutionalized way that every student is getting the pertinent information that they need to vote and the help that they need.”
Colby Votes prioritizes increasing co-curricular engagement. Fellows often reach out to professors and offer to give brief in-class presentations with pertinent information about student voting. In addition, Colby partnered with the Student-Athlete Advisory Committee (SAAC) to create a voting competition between Colby’s sports teams, incentivizing the team with the most student voters with a $100 gift card to Portland Pie Company.
Dean of Civic Engagement Elizabeth Jabar shared the significant progress in student democratic voter participation since 2014, stating the steady climb in voter registration, from 64.8 percent in 2014 to 73 percent in 2018 and a staggering 93.1 percent in 2020.
This past election, Colby Votes organized a shuttle with free transportation to the voting polls starting at 9:30 a.m. and running throughout the day. Colby also funded an additional shuttle with stops throughout Waterville to provide voting ease for residents.
“Colby has always had, or at least recently had, a community voting shuttle. It would go around and pick up voters at various stops in Waterville and take them to the polls,” Simescu said. This year they added a stop on campus, which changed our capacity a lot. The shuttle ran throughout the entire day, starting at like 9:30 in the morning, and then the Office of Student Engagement also rented a shuttle van from 4 to 7 p.m.
Similar to Colby Votes, “In the News” events at the Goldfarb Center for Public Affairs, as well as on-campus clubs, such as Colby Democrats, support student voting.
~ Elsie Scott `30
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