XX, XX set to clash to succeed Janet Mills as Maine governor

Hannah Pingree (D) and Bobby Charles (R) are projected to face off this November in the contested race to succeed retiring Gov. Janet Mills (D), according to Decision Desk HQ. 

A total of five Democrats and eight Republicans ran for their party’s respective nominations for Maine governor.  

Pingree, the daughter of Rep. Chellie Pingree (D-Maine), is a former speaker of the Maine House of Representatives, while Charles is a former U.S. assistant secretary of State.

Maine uses ranked-choice voting in the primaries for governor. If no candidate wins more than half of the vote outright in their primary, the candidate with the least number of votes is eliminated and voters who chose the eliminated candidate have their second choices tallied. The process continues until someone reaches more than half of the vote.  

Democrats and Republicans sought to form alliances in an effort to block gubernatorial frontrunners — Charles and former Maine Centers for Disease Control and Prevention director Nirav Shah (D) — in their respective primaries.  

Pingree, Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows (D) and former Maine Senate President Troy Jackson (D) pressed their voters to rank each other in the top-three slots, while several Republicans urged supporters to back their own preferred picks, which did not include Charles.  

Shah took the lead in the initial round of vote counting, but Pingree moved ahead in the later counts.  

While Maine hasn’t cast its electoral votes for a Republican president since 1988, the state has a history of repeatedly bouncing between Democrat, Republican and even independent governors. Before Mills, Republican Paul LePage served for two terms; prior to that, Democrat John Baldacci served two terms. Baldacci was preceded by Sen. Angus King (I-Maine), who served between 1995 and 2003. 

Maine is poised to tee up another key contest this fall. Sen. Susan Collins’s (R) is fending off a challenge from populist oyster farmer Graham Platner, who’s been riddled with negative headlines and controversy in recent weeks. 

The nonpartisan election handicapper Cook Political Report rated the Maine governor’s seat before the primary as “likely Democrat.”