Canyon Woodward

I am a political strategist, author, and trail runner.

Born & raised in the beautiful backwoods of Southern Appalachia and the North Cascades, mountain trails underfoot have been a constant for me ever since I took my first steps. I have been running as a means of play & exploration for most my life, frequently startling deer and foxes in the open meadows and farmlands near our home and ducking through forests of rhododendron to link up forgotten logging roads hidden deep in the mountains. I keep coming back for the grounding sense of connection - to self, others, and the land - that flows unrestrained on the trail, and which feels all the more essential amidst this digital world. It's those same things, manifested in a very different way, that draw me to the work of organizing for political change.

In 2018, with my dear friend and fellow climate activist Chloe Maxmin, I set out on a journey to explore what might be done to rebuild rural politics. We had become organizers in college co-coordinating the campaign to get Harvard to divest from fossil fuels and saw a need to bring those skills back to fight for the places that raised us. Chloe ran for the District 88 Maine House of Representatives seat where she grew up and I managed her campaign, knowing we faced steep odds. Our approach worked, and it was the first ever Democratic win in a rural district that had voted Republican by a 16-point margin over the past three elections.

In 2020 Chloe ran for State Senate in the most rural county of the most rural state in the nation, challenging the most powerful Republican in the Maine government: Dana Dow, the Senate Minority Leader.

A longtime fixture of Maine politics, Dow had never lost a general election since he was first elected to the Senate in 2004. In fact, the last time that Senate leadership had been knocked out by either party in Maine was in 1992 – the year Chloe was born. The Bangor Daily News, one of the state’s largest papers, would later compare our race to the boxing match between Buster Douglas and Mike Tyson (one of the greatest upsets in sports history, Douglas – a 42:1 underdog – won that match by knockout against then undefeated heavyweight champion of the world Tyson). On November 3rd, 2020, Chloe won, becoming the youngest woman Senator in the history of Maine.