A woman with glasses and shoulder-length wavy hair sits outdoors at a wooden table, with string lights and trees in the background, near a body of water during evening.

Hi, I’m paige loud.

I’m running for Congress because the issues hurting rural Maine—skyrocketing costs, disappearing healthcare access, and systems that fail working families—need to be fixed at the federal level. As a social worker, I’m the one people call when those systems break, and I know firsthand how policy failures translate into real suffering.

I bring a perspective Congress is missing: someone who has sat at kitchen tables across this district helping families navigate hunger, housing insecurity, aging, and medical crises. I’m running now because Washington has continually made things worse, and both parties have failed to deliver real solutions to communities like ours.

This district deserves a representative who puts people first, not corporations or party politics. I’m running to fight for a Maine where families can afford to live, work, and stay; because our future depends on it. 

My story

A young girl with light brown hair, smiling at the camera, wearing a white shirt with blue suspenders.
A woman sitting on a dark couch, holding a sleeping baby in her lap.
A young girl with brown, curly hair and an excited expression, wearing a red long-sleeve shirt, leaning on a wooden stool with her hands on top, indoors in a room with a beige carpet and cabinets.

I’m a daughter, a wife, a citizen of the Cherokee Nation, a social worker, an organizer, a renter, and a first-generation graduate student at the University of Maine. I’ve spent my career in the homes of working-class Mainers, at kitchen tables where families are trying to solve impossible problems with fewer and fewer tools. 

People like me aren't supposed to run for Congress.  We’re supposed to stay quiet, stay grateful, and stay out of the way. I grew up in a town where the utility department was the only economic engine, the fire department ran on volunteers, and city hall lived in an old school building that the state gave up on. My brother and I were raised by a single mom who survived domestic violence, opioid addiction, and a community of family and friends that showed me working together is the bedrock of our society. We relied on SNAP, Tribal Health Care, and financial support from family members at times - but my mom never gave up, and there are millions of mothers just like her. 

We need Medicare for All. We need to solve the hunger and housing crises across Maine by federally recognizing food and shelter as inalienable rights for protecting life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. We need representatives that put people first.