Yet it was perhaps inevitable after the way Amazon turned its search for a second headquarters, which it announced in a blaze of publicity in September, into such a beauty contest. Even with unemployment low, the stock market booming and the economy chugging along, the prospect of landing as many as 50,000 high-paying jobs from Amazon aroused the excitement of politicians everywhere.

“When they rolled this idea out, the narrow description they used really only defined about 30 cities,” said Mr. Phillips of Day 1, referring to how Amazon had said it was looking for a metropolitan area in North America with at least a million people, among other criteria. “Maybe they truly thought only 30 cities would apply. The fact that 238 did probably caught them off-guard.”

Scarborough, for instance, was probably not on Amazon’s radar. It is on the Northeast coast, just south of Portland, and has a population of about 20,000. The simplicity of the application process, which involved answering nine questions, providing data and touting the city, “encouraged us and several hundred others who did not have a viable chance to make the strongest possible argument why it should be us,” said Mr. Hall, the town manager. “There’s value in thinking and articulating that.”

Another factor at play: the sense that Amazon was determined to achieve dominance, so why not join up?