The campaign of Democrat Joe Biden announced three additional staff hires in Maine on Wednesday.
B.J. McCollister, who recently served as chief of staff to Maine Senate President Troy Jackson, will serve as deputy state director for Biden’s presidential campaign in the state. McCollister previously served as executive director of the Maine Senate Democratic Campaign Committee, which works to recruit and elect Democrats to the state Senate.
Paige Nygaard will serve as the Biden coalitions director, focused on connecting different constituencies with the campaign. A Bath native, Nygaard has worked on environmental, climate, health care and youth involvement issues in Maine.
Victoria Vinall was named press secretary for the campaign in Maine. Vinall previously worked as deputy press secretary for Democratic presidential candidate Tom Steyer and has also worked with NextGen America, which is a youth voting initiative created by Steyer, as well as with the Jane Goodall Institute.
While the re-election campaign of President Trump has been active in Maine for well over a year, the Biden campaign had a negligible presence in the state prior to the March 3 primaries. Recent polls suggest that Biden has a healthy lead over Trump, although the incumbent’s campaign hopes to at least repeat its 2016 performance by capturing one of Maine’s four Electoral College votes by winning the 2nd Congressional District.
The latest staff announcements come one day after Biden, the presumptive Democratic nominee, announced that California Sen. Kamala Harris will serve as his running mate. Earlier this summer, the Biden campaign named James Stretch, a campaign veteran in state and federal races, as the Maine state director while Portland City Councilor Spencer Thibodeau was named as senior adviser.
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