What if Maine elected a governor who just gets things done? | Opinion

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Erin Cavallaro lives in Westbrook with her husband and two children and serves on the Westbrook School Committee. She works in higher education and nonprofit fundraising.

After watching the first gubernatorial debate, one thing became even clearer to me: Maine needs Hannah Pingree.

Politics has become very good at telling us what divides us. We know which team everyone is on. We know what we’re supposed to be angry about and who we are supposed to blame. Somewhere along the way, though, we seem to have lost sight of what government is actually supposed to do: make people’s lives better.

That’s why I’m supporting Hannah Pingree for governor.

I’m a Democrat, and Hannah and I share many of the same values. But what impresses me about her isn’t simply that she knows what she believes. It’s that she understands governing requires more than being right. It requires getting something done.

I’ve learned that firsthand serving on my local school committee. The decisions that come before us aren’t theoretical. They affect whether kids get to school, whether teachers have the resources they need, how much taxpayers are asked to contribute and whether families can count on the public institutions that serve them.

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You quickly learn that accomplishing anything meaningful requires listening to people you disagree with, finding common ground where it exists and remembering that the work matters more than the politics surrounding it.

Hannah has spent her career doing exactly that.

As a legislator and eventually speaker of the Maine House, she worked with people whose political beliefs were fundamentally different from her own. They disagreed — sometimes significantly. But disagreement didn’t prevent them from sitting at the same table and finding ways to move Maine forward. That feels almost radical in politics today.

Former Republican House leader Josh Tardy, who served alongside Hannah, has spoken about that quality. He and Hannah certainly didn’t agree on everything, but he has said that, despite their partisan differences, she believed Republicans and Democrats needed to work together to find common ground.

That isn’t abandoning your principles. That’s governing — and addressing those challenges will require people who disagree with one another to work together.

I don’t expect Hannah to agree with everyone in Augusta, nor would I want her to abandon her values in the name of artificial bipartisanship. But Maine is a small state with some very big challenges. We need more housing that working families can actually afford. We need young people to be able to build lives and careers here instead of being priced out. We need strong schools, thriving downtowns and an economy that works in communities from York County to Aroostook.

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In a state where more than 690,000 Mainers live in rural communities, we need to make sure that where someone lives doesn’t determine whether they can find a doctor or access essential services.

I want a governor who understands that sometimes governing is as simple as finding the thing you agree on, rolling up your sleeves and getting it done. Government shouldn’t be about winning the argument or scoring points against the other side. It should be about results.

At a time when so much of our politics is defined by division, Maine has an opportunity to choose a different approach — a governor who knows what she believes, listens to people who see things differently and understands that finding common ground isn’t a weakness. It’s how good government is supposed to work.

That’s why I’m supporting Hannah Pingree.

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Tagged: columns, election 2026, governor's race 2026