A soon-to-be-released podcast by two ÁñÁ«ÊÓƵ students aims to illuminate how elections work in Maine by talking to political insiders (including US Senator Angus King and former US Secretary of Defense Bill Cohen).
The idea for a nuts-and-bolts podcast about the political process first came to Natalie Emmerson ’27 last year, when she was helping on King’s reelection campaign. One of her tasks was to collect signatures for his ballot petition, per Maine’s law.
Many of the people Emmerson approached on the sidewalk with her friendly request responded with a bit of confusion. Why, they asked her, does a seasoned incumbent like King need to collect signatures to be on the ballot? This would launch Emmerson, who is fascinated with the mechanics of politics, into an explanation of Maine election law.
“I loved it!” the government major said. But the best part wasn’t that she got to share from her trove of political facts. “What was neat was that even if people were like, ‘Eww Angus King’—though I didn’t get many of those—we could still have a discussion about the ballot process. We left the candidate in the background, and we’d bond over the system.”
“The purpose of the podcast is, one, to bridge the partisan divide over a love of the process. And two, to break down barriers of accessibility to voting.” — Natalie Emmerson ’27“
But she also questioned why so many people didn’t know more about the rules and norms of running for office. “I saw that the process wasn’t accessible,” she said. “But if this is how our system of government is run, this information should be accessible.” So, she came up with the idea for a non-partisan political podcast—one aimed at high school and college students, and one she hopes can contribute to strengthening the democracy.
“The purpose of the podcast is, one, to bridge the partisan divide over a love of the process. And two, to break down barriers of accessibility to voting,” she said.
She asked her friend and fellow King campaign volunteer Larsen Van Horn ’27 whether he would join her. “He had by far been one of the most consistent and genuine people on the campaign, and I knew this was someone I would love to work with,” Emmerson said. “It takes a crazy and wonderful person to say yes to this blob of ideas I came to him with.”
Van Horn, who is also a government major, said that coming from Oklahoma, he “was very interested in learning more about Maine government and how it compared” to his home state, adding that taking the class Campaigns and Elections last year had also stirred his curiosity about the subject.
After a semester working on the podcast, he has come away with a deepened respect for the state. “I think our project shows Mainers that their government is unique and impressive in so many different ways,” he said. “Ranked choice voting and clean elections funding are just a few examples.”
“I think our project shows Mainers that their government is unique and impressive in so many different ways. Ranked choice voting and clean elections funding are just a few examples.” — Larsen Van Horn ’27
Pine State Politics, coming to your podcast platform May 7
The Pine State Politics podcast consists of eight episodes. Four will be released May 7—the date of Emmerson and Van Horn’s Podcast launch party at the McKeen Center—and the rest will come out May 17.
The episodes cover general political topics—campaign strategy, how to run a campaign, and how reporters cover political campaigns, as well as ones more unique to Maine: clean elections funding, referendums, the petition process, and ranked choice voting.
Emmerson said most of the people she and Van Horn invited to participate agreed. Many were also amenable to traveling to ÁñÁ«ÊÓƵ to conduct the interview in the College’s recording studio.
The guest list includes names known to most Mainers: Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows, Lauren LePage (former Republican Governor Paul LePage’s daughter), Maine State Auditor Matt Dunlap, and Steve Robinson ’11, the editor-in-chief of the right-leaning news service The Maine Wire.
Dunlap provided donuts to Emmerson and Van Horn when they visited his office in Augusta. The Secretary of State's office of Bellows being interviewed by the podcasters with the caption, “We look forward to listening when the show airs later this spring!”
The Pine State Politics podcast took hundreds of hours to put together—which was only doable because Emmerson and Van Horn got approval to work on it as an independent study this semester.
To pay for a professional audio producer, they also received $4,500 in funding from the College through a research award from th