JAY — Eighteen-year-old Trevor Doiron plans to wait and see what the future holds for him in politics. He hopes to attend Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., to study political science for his undergraduate degree.

Doiron was 17 and the youngest Democratic delegate of 30 from Maine and the youngest male at the National Democratic Convention to nominate then-presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton in July in Philadelphia. He turned 18 following the convention and before Election Day.

“I can’t say for sure what my future (may) be. A year ago I never would have imagined myself as being a delegate, so I’m just going to wait and see what the future holds,” Doiron said.

When he woke up on Election Day he was feeling pretty good about Clinton’s chance of winning.

“It was the first time I could vote in a general election, so it was pretty exciting,”
he said.

He is responsible for all of the Democratic political signs in Jay, and went out on election night to pick up some of them.

Doiron, a senior at Spruce Mountain High School, didn’t start watching election coverage until about 9 p.m. At that point, the race was close.

When he went to bed at 11, they hadn’t called the election.

“I did not feel very optimistic about the outcome,” he said.

He went back out the next day with a driver to finish picking up the more than 200 signs in the town.

His favorite part of the convention was the people.

“Not only the people you got to listen to but the people I had the opportunity to meet,” he said.

Among the people he met: the delegate from American Samoa, TV journalist Tom Brokaw and U.S. Rep. John Lewis, D-Georgia, who marched with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. during the Civil Rights Movement.

He was also inspired by some of the speeches he heard, he said, including one given by the Rev. William Barber of North Carolina.

“I never would have expected his speech to be so powerful,” Doiron said.

His advice to anyone thinking of getting into politics is to start small and look at what is going on in their community.

“I think a lot of people who would be good at giving policy advice decide not to because they feel they have to have all the answers right off the bat. You don’t have to,” he said.

He put in a lot of work to run to be a delegate. This year, 100 people vied for the delegation.

“I am very thankful, obviously, for the opportunity this community and state have given me. I will probably be leaving the state for college, but I hope to be back. I certainly won’t forget the lessons this community and state taught me,” he said.

dperry@sunjournal.com