MIDCOAST — If you're just tuning in to the state legislative races, you may have noticed some disorienting changes. Local candidates seem to be vying for districts halfway across the state. Incumbents are nowhere to be found.

The one-word explanation is: Redistricting. Beyond that, things get complicated, and interesting.

Last June, the Maine Legislature approved redrawn and renumbered maps of the state's House and Senate districts. Redistricting is done every 10 years to account for population changes reflected in the most recent census. The districts approved last June based on 2010 statistics take effect for the first time in the 2014 election cycle.

By law, districts must be made of contiguous areas — though not always connected by land, as in some coastal districts. Maine's constitution also encourages keeping municipalities intact when possible.

In the comparatively small House Districts, hitting these marks while balancing population blocks around an ideal number (8,797 in 2013, as compared with 37,953 for Senate districts), leaves less room for political maneuvering.

"There's a lot of rules to what districts can look like so we don't have these strange gerrymandered districts that you see at the national level," said Mary Erin Casale, executive director of the Maine Democratic Party.

It also often leads to combinations of towns and cities that don't always match natural geopolitical lines. In transitional years, like the current one, redistricted representatives may end up competing against each other for reelection. Often incumbents lose constituents to other districts and must appeal to residents of towns where they are comparatively unknown.  

"There's no consistency over the years. It's always been different," said House District 41 Rep James Gillway (R-Searsport). Gillway currently represents six towns extending east from Searsport into Hancock County.

It's an odd grouping of towns, and Gillway said he was glad that the newly-drawn District 98 fell entirely within Waldo County. But he was also disappointed that it didn't include Stockton Springs, with which Searsport has a number of common interests, including shared school buildings.

"It's unfortunate. I didn't have a lot of input. I don't think any representative does," he said. "When I saw the final map, I was stuck with that."

For Gillway, getting reelected to the new District 98 also means facing another house incumbent, District 42 Rep. Joe Brooks (I-Winterport).

Brooks, a former Democrat who has served in both the House and Senate, said in past elections he's managed to win in majority Republican districts largely on the support from voters in Winterport, and to some extent inland communities to the west. Looking at the new, and by most accounts solidly-Republican, district with a popular town manager on the ticket, Brooks guessed that his own reelection bid would be an uphill battle.

"You still have the unknowns," he said. "The population of the two communities is close, but then you counter that with Searsport being a much bigger business community."

Brooks and Gillway each lost four towns as a result of redistricting and retained two. Further down the coast, in another dual-incumbent race, the split may have benefited the Republican incumbent.

The current House district maps were drawn by a committee of seven Democrats and seven Republicans and an Independent chairman. While Democrats lost one seat across the state's 151 house districts, the agreement was approved by an overwhelming margin in the Legislature and was widely hailed as a victory for bipartisanship.

District 49 Rep. Jeffrey Evangelos (I-Friendship), however, has been outspoken that the process gives the major parties significant leverage over unenrolled representatives.

As a result of redistricting, which Evangelos called a “10-year exercise in gamesmanship and gerrymandering,” the representative from Friendship lost two of the four towns that elected him, plus half of Union, which is now part of two districts. His competitor in the newly-created District 91, Rep. Ellen Winchenbach (R-Waldoboro), lost a comparable number of her District 50 towns, but kept Waldoboro, the most populous town in either of the two former districts. As a result, Evangelos said he would nearly be starting from scratch.

"It's hard on anybody to get redistricted. when you're working hard to represent constituents, you rely on their institutional memory," he said. "My constituents can't reelect me even if they want to."

Winchenbach conceded that she may have an advantage in the current race.

"I don't think either one of us enjoys running against each other," she said. "We're cordial, we respect each other and we'll run positive campaigns. But one of us is going to go. God help us."

On the flip side of the redistricting equation, two of the newly-formed house districts in the Midcoast have no incumbents in the mix.

District 96 (Lincolnville, Belmont, Morrill, Montville, Liberty, Palermo, Searsmont). Christine Burstein (D-Lincolnville) and Ryan Harmon (R-Palermo) will compete for a seat nominally vacated by District 44 Rep. Jethro Pease (R-Morrill), who is not seeking reelection.

Harmon served one term as representative of District 45, then largely in Western Waldo County, but lost a reelection bid to Brian Jones (D-Freedom) in 2012.

As a result of redistricting, Harmon and Jones are now in different districts. The Penobscot Bay Pilot made several attempts to reach Harmon to learn if redistricting factored in his decision to run again, but received no reply.

District 131 (Prospect, Stockton Springs, Dedham, Orland, Otis, Penobscot and Verona Island) is without an incumbent purely as a result of redistricting. The seven-towns stretch across the Penobscot River from Stockton Springs in a similar orientation to Gillway’s current District 41, but without Searsport.

Veronica Magnan (D-Stockton Springs) and Karleton Ward (R-Holden) will be competing for the new seat. Magnan served one term as House District 41 representative, but lost to Gillway in 2010. She did not run in 2012, though in deference to a hip replacement, she said, not because she was reluctant to face Gillway again.

Like her former rival, she described the county-line crossing, river-hopping district as a strange and probably accidental grouping. 

"Searsport to Winterport for instance, that's a very Republican block," she said. "So that looks purposeful. There was rhyme and reason.”

District 131, she said, was probably what was left over.

“But we'll get out there and have a good time," she said.

For a chart of the current legislative races in Knox and Waldo counties (and parts of Hancock and Lincoln), download the attachment at the top of this article.

Additional references

Statewide map of Maine House districts
Statewide map of Maine Senate districts

Ethan Andrews can be reached at news@penbaypilot.com