BANGOR DAILY NEWS • October 3, 2022
With an economy built on union jobs, Jay was once the epitome of a Democratic bastion. Then former President Donald Trump came along. The Androscoggin Mill, which once employed 1,500 people, is shutting down next year and will lay off 230 after a massive digester explosion in April 2020. Though some Democrats have performed well there recently, Jay is one of the many mill towns in Maine and across the country that went heavily for then-President Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012 before flipping to Trump in 2016 and 2020. Some Democrats think they can regain ground there. Glenda DiPompo, who has owned the Riverside Kwik Stop for 50 years, conceded there are many Republicans in town who believe everything Trump says. But she argued Jay is still fundamentally working-class and Democratic.