Bowdoin Students Launch Pine State Politics Season Two With Governor Candidate Interviews

Nine of Maine's declared gubernatorial candidates agreed to sit for individual interviews with three Bowdoin College students, producing what may be the most comprehensive candidate-access project of the 2026 primary season. The second season of Pine State Politics, a nonpartisan student-produced podcast, drops April 13 on all major podcast platforms.

Juniors Natalie Emmerson and Larsen Van Horn, who launched the show in 2025, recruited senior Sofia Fogg for the expanded project. Together they recorded nine episodes, each running about 40 minutes, covering the full declared field: Democrats Nirav Shah, Shenna Bellows, Hannah Pingree, Troy Jackson, and Angus King III; Republicans David Jones, Jim Libby, and Owen McCarthey; and Independent Rick Bennett.

"We have a ton of well-established candidates with name recognition and big followings," Emmerson said. "Any one of them could be running for Maine's US Senate seat." They are not, she added, because being governor is "the best job in Maine, the best job in Maine politics."

The team tailored questions to each party's primary electorate. Democratic candidates were asked about tribal sovereignty. Republicans faced questions on last November's state referendums and a prospective citizen initiative that would restrict transgender athletes from competing in school sports. "We tried to write the questions from the perspective of 'What would a voter in each primary want to know?'" Emmerson said.

Van Horn pointed to the first season's process-focused approach as a foundation for the more politically charged second. "Because this was our second season, I felt more confident about being able to interview all the candidates from a nonpartisan perspective," he said. "I hope we established that, by having our first season be an introduction to Maine government, we are just a purely educational, non-partisan podcast."

The crowded field exists in large part because incumbent Democratic Gov. Janet Mills is term-limited, opening the race to a primary contest that will be decided June 9 before a ranked-choice general election in November.

Season one of the podcast was later used by the Maine Department of Education to develop civics curriculum for high school classrooms statewide. The show is produced through Bowdoin's McKeen Center for the Common Good as an independent study.