We have missed the deadline to qualify for ballot access this November, and since I don’t feel like going through the sloggery of running a write-in campaign, I am no longer running for Congress. I haven’t quite decided which thing to do next, but the rest of my summer will be spent on other projects, including communicating lessons learned from this campaign so that I and other young folks considering running for office in the future can learn from this experience.

We’ll also be using what platform we’ve gained here to try to coordinate community projects here in Southern Maine. The rate of emails will definitely slow down, and if those sorts of things don’t interest you this is a good jumping off point for the mailing list here; there is an unsubscribe button at the bottom.

Finally, one last thank you to the folks who gave their time and energy and signatures towards this effort to get me elected. There is no substitute for actually being here doing the literal work it takes to get to Washington, and I am so grateful that you were all willing to share it with me. Thank you especially to Dante, both Zoes, my father, Crow, Jesse, Fairen, Phoebe, Dax, Chauncey, Charlie, Ted, Matt, Theresa, and Linda.

Please inform me by tonight whether you are able to canvass at a parade. Plan to show up to your parade route 1 hour before it starts so you can talk to people as they arrive and are waiting rather than as they’re watching the festivities. I will provide all the materials you need: petition sheets, pens, flyers. Folks who haven’t volunteered yet but signed up for all the emails, your participation or your friends’ participation could genuinely be the difference between making it and not. Folks who signed up to receive just news but not volunteer opportunities, sorry I haven’t actually figured out how to make multiple subscriber lists yet, but I will before I post more things that aren’t also news and updates.

As always my email address is tristramforcongress@gmail.com

Bath: Parade starts at 10:30 am, arrive at 9:30 am.

Biddeford and Saco: Parade starts 10 am, arrive at 9 am.

Brunswick and Topsham: Parade starts at 9 am, arrive at 8 am

Cape Elizabeth: Parade starts 9 am, arrive at 8am

Falmouth: Parade starts 10 am, arrive at 9 am

Freeport: Parade starts 10 am, arrive at 9 am.

Gorham: Parade starts at 11 am, arrive at 10 am.

Sanford: Parade starts at 10 am, arrive at 9 am.

South Portland: Parade starts 10:30 am, arrive at 9:30 am.

Westbrook: Parade starts at 10 am, arrive at 9 am.

Portland: Parade starts 2 pm, arrive at 1 pm. Any volunteers who have already worked a parade are also invited and encouraged to attend this one! I will have a person here after the parade able to notarize your petitions so you can hand them off to me before Tuesday.

Here’s the current situation: At present I have 500 signatures in my possession, expect around 150 from current volunteers, and am able to personally collect 250 more if I work all weekend on just petitioning, bringing us to a grand total of around 900 out of 2,000 needed to get on the ballot. Collecting 100 signatures takes a full day and Monday is the last day for collecting them, which means I need a minimum of 12 more people working with me on Monday in order to really make it.

So here’s the plan: I am going to spend tomorrow calling every person I know, from everywhere I know them, to see if I can make that happen. I encourage you to do the same. They can be from anywhere and belong to any party, I just need them to want this election to be interesting, like what’s on my platform, and be willing to talk to people. For folks who are going to a parade, this is practically a free activity: I will provide you with all the materials you need to succeed at canvassing along your parade route, and you will be able to experience the thrill of having the opportunity to personally change the shape of the US House of Representatives for the better.

The plan will be to rally and get organized in the early morning, then split up to our various parade routes, and reconvene in the evening to notarize all our sheets so I can bring them to a dozen different town halls on Tuesday.

In the meantime, thank you to everyone who has given me encouragement and said thank you to me for throwing this campaign together and keeping it going by the rattles of its engine. Especially thank you to the kid who sent me a message on Instagram today after meeting me at the farmer’s market to ask about how term limits would interact with congressional retirement plans; messages like yours are what keep me motivated and on-task as this deadline approaches and the possible roads to ballot qualification get narrower.

I am still over 1,000 signatures short of ballot access. This weekend will be assisted by multiple volunteers, the newest of whom, Fairen, is both petitioning for me on Sunday AND teaching me how to use Instagram properly (or at least more properly than I have been) on top of being in an awesome local pirate band.

If we make it across the finish line by Monday night it will be just barely: our difficulty is not finding people willing to sign petitions (they are everywhere we look), but finding people with the time of day to carry them around for us. Join our motley crew any day this weekend by emailing tristramforcongress@gmail.com, or if you are someone who has my phone number, just call me. We will provide all the supplies you’ll need to get our country one step closer to being kinder and livable for us all.

I will also be in need of the services of a Notary Public for several hours on Monday evening. If you are or know a notary who would be would in interested in witnessing the US system of government at work, please reach out to me!

The two most interesting topics of the day today (aside from healthcare and the general expense and toil of daily living in this age) were voting rights and ballot access. I collected another 45 or so signatures this evening after work (photo on break eating my pierogis for lunch) trying to get ahead of this weekend’s canvassing workload.

I think that every American should be allowed to vote to be represented in elections. It’s the way we decide what the rules should be, and everyone no matter who they are or where they come from should have the ability to take part in that discussion and have their part hold equal weight. Whether you do or don’t have a valid photo ID, whether you do or don’t have a felony conviction, and no matter the town you live in, if you are a part of this country then you are a part of its decisions, and it should be as easy as possible for you to take part.

On a similar note, getting on the ballot should be the same process no matter your party affiliation, and our government voter registrations should not be burdened by party affiliation. It feels ridiculous that party candidates only have to collect half as many signatures to get their names on the ballot, even if they do then have to survive a primary election. Party primary elections are internal party affairs, which the government should not be concerned with, especially when parties are not required to hold them, but rather are allowed to choose their candidates in whatever manner they wish.

In any case, today I was once again out and about finding people from all over Southern Maine (and one person who couldn’t sign because they were from Wisconsin, but did love my introduction and little talk!). It’s great to see people be excited about someone fresh running for office; I love seeing everyone’s face when they see who I am and hear what I’m about for their first time. A lot of people like it, and that makes me happy! Plus I got to pick up another pocketful of trash while I was out and about, so that’s always good!

We are once again in the News! The Portland Press Herald ran an article about the signs you can sit on, in which everyone except me stubbornly refers to them as benches. But hey, just because it’s shaped like a giraffe and painted like a giraffe doesn’t make it not a sign!

I was in Portland this evening to canvass, and term limits came up a lot. I think two terms is enough at one go for any person to be in Congress, whether they are a senator (6 year term) or a representative (2 year term). I also respect that sometimes when someone does a good job it can be important to hire them again, so in my mind they’d be allowed to run again after a term off. This term off would allow members of Congress to stay close with the states they live in and represent, and also keep in touch with how their communities are doing and what it feels like to need the things that their communities need.

There are three quarters of a million people in a US congressional district, and the idea that only one of them could be capable of representing us at any given instant is bizarre to me, as it’s one that we disprove every single time a politician retires and is instantly replaced by someone adequate. I’m a big believer in sharing, and can only hope that when my own children (should I be lucky enough to have any) are the age a normal member of Congress is now, they remember that sharing is for the responsibilities of our communities as well as the rewards.

In any case, I had an excellent time in Portland, picked up two new volunteers to help circulate petitions this weekend (see? sharing!) and gathered another 50 or so signatures (after working a 10 hour day, also, thank you to the folks who signed for sharing the work of putting me on the ballot!), so I’m going to publish this post early and reward myself with possibly a sixth hour of sleep.

As always anyone willing to join this little friendly network of folks trying to make the world better by getting this conversation on the ballot where we can all vote for it, email tristramforcongress@gmail.com! It takes 2,000 signatures for a non-party candidate to get on the ballot, so offering to let your friends and neighbors sign nomination petitions with you is the only way to let your friends and neighbors have the option of voting for me in the fall. Imagine the satisfaction of looking at a ballot and knowing that someone on it is there because you put them there. I’ve had that satisfaction before, and with a little elbow grease we could all share it this November.

There’s a lot to be said for proving something can be done by just doing it. For instance, I know it only takes a tiny amount of effort to keep a street relatively litter-free because I pick up trash when I’m out walking and my routes are sparkling because of it. I know people still stop to help each other change their tire because I do that myself when I see someone on the side of the road sometimes. I know that working people can run for Congress to fix everyday problems because once again it’s me doing it, and I know that a lot of people like what they see and hear because they tell me to my face and to my website.

If you feel weird talking about or volunteering for a politician that’s totally understandable, so don’t do it for me. Do it for the families that wouldn’t need to struggle if dependent tax credits actually covered the cost of having a dependent. Do it for the hassle we would save by having the IRS prepare our taxes for us. Do it for the idea that housing might be cheap enough to own again one day instead of just rent. Or do it just to make a health insurer sweat nervously, because this is how we get those things. Not by asking for them but by buckling in and getting them ourselves.

For folks who are going to a party, parade, sports game, or other friendly cordial gathering, bringing a petition to share is free (I can drop it off to you on Friday), directly helpful, and indeed is the only direct action required to make progress towards the ballot in November. And this is the last weekend it can be done, so it’s a good thing the weather will be beautiful and the weekend three days long.

The thing about proof is that we can only ever prove what is possible, and never what can’t be done. We can prove that Congress can work for Mainers by succeeding. We can prove that Maine can be supportive of younger leaders who favor direct positive action by being supportive. And like every other challenge in life, if we fail we will never know which things can’t be done: we’ll only know what we did ourselves to achieve them, and we’ll just have to be okay with that.

This campaign is now in crunch mode. All further events on the Q&A tour are suspended until we get enough signatures to qualify for the ballot, as canvassing is more productive than hosting and scheduling at this time. If you can get twenty people from the same town in one room I will be happy to try and stop by for up to an hour to talk to you on Friday, Saturday, or Sunday this week.

I’m starting this post by saying thank you to my father for collecting more than 80 signatures for me today, and to another old friend for signing up to collect a few more and possibly recruit some more friends into circulating! I am now in crunch time until the deadline on the 26th, and my campaign will be focused entirely on me putting myself and what volunteers we have out in our communities to meet as many of you as possible. Tomorrow I will be in Sanford, a town that I don’t know I’ve ever stopped in before, and I’ll be interested to see what happens there.

Having attended two such events in the last couple of days I have now learned that candidate Q&As are not a good way for me to meet as many people as we need to carry the campaign onto the ballot, so unless a lot more volunteers sign up tomorrow I will be canceling the reservation at Curtis Memorial Library for this coming Saturday. They will resume once voting for me is actually a choice that people have or once I have another person coordinating and publicizing them.

I wanted to do something witty here where I ranked all the temporary signs (mostly campaign signs) littering South Portland’s public right-of-way by how comfortable they’d be to sit on but it’s way, way past my bedtime so that’ll have to wait for another day. I did take lots of pictures of them, though. And as you can see above, now my name was on another sign today, and I didn’t even have to make this one!

I spent this morning in Mill Creek Park in South Portland painting a couple of signs we can sit on to place around town. They’ll have to be taken down in six weeks, but they’re a good example of the sort of helpfulness it’s possible to achieve with very little organizing, and I will organize another painting party as that deadline approaches. The City actually reached out to me and asked me not to put them around, but then I went past a sign for one of the District Attorney candidates that was bigger and more obnoxious in every single way than what I was doing so I decided that if the law was good enough for the attorneys then it’s good enough for me. All this wasn’t a campaign event but it was very enjoyable.

This evening I was at Hi Fidelity Brewing Company as promised, and had some quite in-depth conversations! Thank you to Dante both for hosting and for quoting from your pocket constitution as needed. We didn’t get the food pantry contributions I was hoping for so I bought a bowl of rice and beans for the bar’s pass-it-forward board, and hopefully someone finds it when they need it.

Tomorrow I will be back in my old stomping grounds yet again for another Q&A at the American Legion on Broadway, and then in the following evenings I will be out canvassing in Sanford, Biddeford, and Rockland.

All this to say I am still in need of about 15 more friends and helpers to actually make the deadline by the end of next weekend, so if there’s anybody you’ve been hiding up your sleeve, any person who hasn’t been told: today would be an excellent day to reach out to them.

See you all out there!

Hello Maine! I am once again back in-state and my goodness we look different than when I left last Friday. Happy Spring for real, and this time when I say it all our trees have leaves!

I am as always incredibly excited to be in the running for your Representative to Congress. I’m honestly really pleased to be in a position where the consequences you and I live with every day of decisions that are made for us are solvable in ways that are accessible to you and me. It helps me to know that everything that has ever been done, be it by a plumber or a politician or a captain or a carpenter, has been done by someone just buckling down and putting the little pieces of their Work together until it is complete in very manageable little steps, almost always with help along the way.

So now that I am back in Maine I am preparing for the week ahead. Starting tomorrow every spare hour I have will be spent collecting signatures all over Maine. You can help make this task manageable for me by signing up to fill a sheet of up to 40 of your neighbors (neighbors actually love meeting you and hearing what you’re up to, and you get to see all the fun colors they’ve painted their various front doors!). Due to time shortages, towns on the Q&A tour list that don’t have venues yet can instead expect to see me out on the street knocking on doors and talking to people the old fashioned way. If you would rather see me in a local room full of your fellow citizens and have time to make arrangements, let me know and I can be flexible about that.

Some slight changes to the schedule: I will be at Fernald’s Country Store in Damariscotta on Friday the 22nd from 2:30-4pm. I will be at the Brunswick Farmer’s Market that Friday morning. Some other changes have happened as well so I’ve attached the updated itinerary. Most immediately upcoming remains Hi Fidelity in Portland tomorrow from 4-6 and the American Legion in South Portland on Monday from 6-7:30.

As always the goal remains to get to 2,000 signatures (minimum) submitted to their various town halls by the 26th in order to get my name on the ballot at all. The manageable steps are individual petitions with 40 spaces. I am on my way to filling 4 or 5 sheets myself. And for people who don’t like knocking on doors, farmer’s markets and parade routes are great places to find people who live close by.

It has been wonderful meeting you all and I can’t wait to continue! And last here’s an extra big thank you to the folks who have reached out to say they appreciate this campaign and our platform! We’re here for you; thank you so much for being here for us, too!