And those very same ads turned her opponent from the accomplished speaker of the Maine House into simply: not Susan Collins. I had a nice chat a few weeks back with a clipboard-carrying Gideon-advocate who wandered up my driveway to make sure I was voting. She kept coming around to the point that it wasn’t enough for Joe Biden to defeat Mr. Trump, but that the Senate had to be taken back from Senator Mitch McConnell. I kept on about the foolishness of nationalizing local races. The question had to be who was best for Maine; any concerns about Mr. McConnell were the sole and exclusive property of the people of Kentucky. I also complained that she was really asking me to vote against Ms. Collins rather than for Ms. Gideon, who seemed to have lost her political personality when she became the standard bearer of a constant negative media blitz. Even the compelling woman in my driveway agreed that Ms. Gideon wasn’t coming across as the most authentic candidate. She, like everyone I know, had preferred the more progressive Betsy Sweet in the Democratic primary. It was a good conversation: serious, informed, respectful.

Yet two days before the vote, a car with out-of-state plates came up my driveway and two more Gideon champions hopped out and began ringing the bell and pounding unstintingly on two separate doors to our house. My wife was more than miffed as our youngest was napping, and asked the canvassers just what in the hell was wrong with them. They answered by asking my wife if she had heard of the Sara Gideon campaign. Dear Katherine suggested they buzz off and was pretty annoyed by the whole encounter. She’d already decided her vote but pointed out that such an off-key visit could easily have swayed her view.

It snowed overnight Monday, and there were still flurries as we stood in line to vote the next morning. Everyone was subdued. No advocacy. No shouting. Just voters doing their socially distanced civic duty and saying a good morning to neighbors from behind masks. About 2,000 people voted in our town of Blue Hill. Mr. Biden won two-thirds of this vote (66 percent to Mr. Trump’s 32). Mr. Golden got 72 percent. But Ms. Gideon only took 55 percent. Very little straight ticket voting here. In the wider county, the Democratic state senator won easily, as did the Republican county commissioner.

The statewide results should give all Mainers something to be proud of, no matter their satisfaction or chagrin at any particular outcome. Voters here were able to distinguish local interests from national ones: to decide for themselves who could serve Maine best at each level of the government. Maine turned 200 in this challenging year. She hasn’t changed that much after all.

Robert Messenger was executive editor of The Weekly Standard.

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