Earlier this month, Mark Brewer was driving to pick up one of his kids when his phone started blowing up.
Texts. Emails. Reporters he knew by name. He didn鈥檛 know why yet. So he pulled over.
A quick search told him everything. The Graham Platner story had broken. Brewer, chair of the University of Maine鈥檚 Department of Political Science, understood immediately what came next.
鈥淥h, OK,鈥 he remembered thinking. 鈥淭his makes sense.鈥
By the next evening, he鈥檇 fielded at least 20 interview requests. For Brewer, it was just the latest chapter in a role he鈥檚 played for Maine media for more than two decades.
The state鈥檚 go-to voice
Brewer has logged his media interviews since 2004. The count now stands at more than 1,780. Roughly 150 of those have come in 2026 alone, already his busiest year on record.
Brewer has fielded interview requests from The New York Times nearly 40 times over the past two decades. Four of those have come this year alone.
Reuters, The Associated Press, Bloomberg, Newsweek, The Washington Post, The Atlantic, Politico, The Hill, the Los Angeles Times and the Financial Times have all called in 2026, too. NBC鈥檚 Boston affiliate has called seven times since spring.
German public broadcaster Deutsche Welle, a Danish newspaper and Canadian radio and television outlets have also sought him out.
Brewer said this summer marks the busiest stretch of his career, with reporters reaching out nearly every day since October.
Through it all, he has stuck to one rule: no opinions.
鈥淲hat I always tell my students is that if you can tell my own politics by the time this class is over, then I haven鈥檛 done my job,鈥 Brewer said.
He knows he鈥檚 succeeded, he said, when students confront him at the end of a semester with opposite conclusions. Some are certain he leans 鈥渢o the left of Marx.鈥 Others are just as sure he鈥檚 a conservative. 鈥淚t鈥檚 like, OK,鈥 he said. 鈥淚 think I鈥檝e done my job.鈥
Brewer votes. He serves on the Orono school board. But when reporters call, he said, they鈥檙e not looking for his personal views. They want analysis.
鈥淪ometimes that doesn鈥檛 make people happy,鈥 he said. He鈥檚 fielded angry emails and phone calls, some from ordinary voters, some from chiefs of staff and sitting officeholders. His answer doesn鈥檛 change. 鈥淚 always try and be fair and objective, and keep it factual.鈥
A national spotlight on Maine
Maine鈥檚 U.S. Senate race is one of the most closely watched contests in the country this year, as Democrats look to flip the seat held by five-term Republican Sen. Susan Collins. Former Democratic State Senate President Troy Jackson is now the presumptive nominee, stepping in after Graham Platner鈥檚 campaign was derailed by controversy.
Brewer said the sustained national and international attention on the race is rare for Maine.
The range of reporters calling him varies widely. International journalists, Brewer said, tend to arrive with the fewest assumptions, often asking basic questions about how Maine鈥檚 elections even work before digging deeper. National reporters generally want to connect Maine鈥檚 race to the fight for Senate control. Local and state reporters stay closest to the ground, focused less on what a race means for Washington and more on what it means for Maine.
He expects the media frenzy to ease somewhat through late summer before picking back up after Labor Day. Still, he doesn鈥檛 expect it to fade the way election coverage typically does in a normal August.
Brewer said the attention carries real benefits for Maine, beyond politics. Visiting journalists spend money in the state, on hotels, meals, rental cars. One Reuters reporter, based in New York, flew into Bangor and drove out to Sullivan, Platner鈥檚 hometown, to cover the story, then asked Brewer where to spend her last few hours in Maine before her flight home.
鈥淚 think it鈥檚 a net benefit for the state, for sure,鈥 he said.
Bringing the headlines into the classroom
For Brewer, the media work and the classroom work aren鈥檛 separate. Last year, the University of Maine recognized that connection between research and teaching, naming Brewer the 2025 Distinguished Maine Professor, the university鈥檚 top faculty honor, given for excellence in teaching, scholarship and public service. He also served as a campaign analyst for PolitiFact and his textbook, 鈥淧arties and Elections in America,鈥 co-authored with L. Sandy Maisel, is among the best-selling books on the subject.
Brewer鈥檚 media presence shapes his teaching, though differently depending on the class.
In his introductory American government courses, filled mostly with non-majors, students are often surprised to see their professor quoted in the news. It鈥檚 an opening, Brewer said, to pull them deeper into current events.
In upper-level courses like Parties and Elections, which he teaches every other fall to mostly majors and minors, it plays out differently. Those students are already following the same coverage he is. When Brewer shows up in a story, it feels less like a surprise and more like a continuation of conversations already happening in class.
Brewer said he tries to accommodate as many interview requests as he can, especially from former students now working as journalists. He said he鈥檚 hard-pressed to turn down a former student unless he lacks the expertise to answer. In that case, he鈥檒l point them toward a colleague instead.
Brewer studied journalism as an undergraduate before turning to political science, a background, he said, that has shaped how he approaches interviews.
For Brewer, all of it comes back to one idea: turning what he studies into something useful for the people reading about it.
鈥淭he way I view it is an opportunity to take the kind of stuff that I study and know as a political scientist and apply that to real-world politics, in a way that will hopefully help people who are reading it have a better understanding of what鈥檚 going on,鈥 Brewer said.
That day on the side of the road, Brewer didn鈥檛 stay pulled over long. He answered what he could, made a plan for the rest, and got back on the road.
He still had a kid to pick up.
Contact: David Nordman, david.nordman@maine.edu
