Supporters of Question 3, which asked voters to approve a casino planned for a vacant mill building in downtown Lewiston, are bitterly disappointed about their defeat at the polls. They blame the group Casinos No!, Gov. Paul LePage, supporters of the Oxford casino under construction 15 miles away, and the media for their loss. But they are vowing to return with another casino proposal soon.

They thought it was the perfect solution for bringing hundreds of jobs to a former mill town: Turn a downtown brownfield into a gold mine with a casino and conference center and end what they say is Lewiston's legacy of getting the short end of the stick.

But supporters were not to get their wish. Question 3 was rejected by more than 60 percent of Maine voters--something that, for Dr. Ron Chicoine, one of the project's financial investors, is hard to take.

"I think there's a lot of disdain and hatred for Lewiston and Lewiston-Auburn. I don't know why that is," he says. "I feel really sad today that 400 people that would have permanent jobs with benefits, including health insurance,will not have those. We won't develop our downtown. It's very sad."

But Dr. Chicoine says he's not giving up on the idea of a Lewiston casino. And neither is Mayor Larry Gilbert. "And we're not going to stand back and take this. We're coming back. It's our turn and it's gonna be our turn!"

Both men had strong words for Gov. Paul LePage, who expressed his opposition to additional casinos in a meeting with Colby College students late last week.

"I voted for him," Chicoine says. "I supported him. But the guy misspeaks so much, he puts his foot in his mouth so much that he needs Desinex for mouthwash. And he helped kill us in Lewiston. That's his hometown. I'm very upset with him."

"We, in Lewiston, certainly have been open for business. Unfortunately, the governor was not," says Mayor Gilbert. "And I fault the governor. It's clearly evident that I don't care for this guy because he comes from Lewiston and he's done nothing, absolutely nothing, for Lewiston and I find that most unfortunate."

Gilbert also blamed Dennis Bailey of CasinosNo and the backers of the Oxford casino, with help from the media, for spreading what he says were lies about the Lewiston casino. The campaign by Mainers Against A Rotten Deal has been largely funded by Friends of the Oxford Casino.

But Bailey says unlike the supporters of Questions 2 and 3--who collectively spent more than $4 million in TV advertising --his group didn't have a campaign war chest. He says he relied largely on social media such as Facebook and Twitter to get his message out.

"They got greedy," Bailey says. "To put three casinos on the ballot a year after another one barely made it...they overreached. I think that really concerned people that they were going to go from one to five and then caused a lot of regional voting where you see Androscoggin County goes 60/40 for Lewiston but 60/40 against Biddeford and vice versa for Biddeford."

Put another way:  It was just too difficult for gambling supporters to build a coaltion across regional lines. Bailey also thinks casino supporters were misleading about their project, producing ads that talked about jobs and education and certain benefits without using the word casino or racino. He says that may have backfired with voters.

But voters in Lewiston did support the local effort in both a city-wide referendum last year and in Tuesday's election. And campaign manager Stavros Mendros says that should and does count for something. "We're not giving up," he says. "We certainly expect to retool and be back on the ballot on 2013."

Mendros says he's already been approached by local people willing to invest their money in the next casino effort.