Maine Governor Race Begins
Maine Primaries: Pingree and Charles Win Gubernatorial Nominations After Ranked-Choice Runoffs
Key Points
Maine’s ranked-choice runoffs concluded very early: the primary results were certified at about 1:45 a.m. Friday, with Pingree winning after three runoff rounds (after trailing Nirav Shah by 3 percentage points on June 9) and Charles prevailing after six rounds.
Pingree’s Mills endorsement was tied to her prior senior role in government: she worked for Gov. Janet Mills heading Maine’s “Office of Policy Innovation and the Future,” and the Washington Post also notes she is the daughter of U.S. Rep. Chellie Pingree.
Bobby Charles is described as a MAGA conservative and as a hands-on digital campaigner—after working in the State Department during George W. Bush’s administration and founding a Washington consulting firm, he ran an aggressive social-media strategy featuring “cartoons and artificial intelligence-generated images” aimed at Democratic rivals.
Charles’s agenda includes a major tax and budget proposal: he pledged to “eliminat[e] Maine’s income tax” and cut the state’s roughly $7 billion budget by $4 billion.
In the U.S. Senate primary, oyster farmer Graham Platner won the Democratic nomination by a wide margin and (unlike the governor and CD-2 races) it “did not need to proceed to ranked choice.”
Ten days after Maine voters went to the polls, the state's ranked-choice voting system produced its verdicts just before 2 a.m. Friday: Democrat Hannah Pingree and Republican Bobby Charles will face each other for governor in November, according to NEWS CENTER Maine. Pingree overcame a 3-percentage-point deficit after election night, winning in three rounds of runoff counting. Charles prevailed after six rounds in a seven-person Republican field.
The race to replace term-limited Democratic Gov. Janet Mills will be a three-way contest. Independent Rick Bennett, a state senator and former Maine GOP chairman, also qualified for the November ballot, according to Spectrum Local News. Unlike the primaries, the general election will use a traditional plurality vote — no ranked choice.
Pingree Flipped a Deficit to Win Democratic Nod
On election night, June 9, Dr. Nirav Shah led the Democratic gubernatorial field with 26.7% of the vote. Hannah Pingree sat 3 points behind at 23.2%. But as lower-finishing candidates were eliminated, Pingree picked up supporters of Shenna Bellows and Troy Jackson and pulled ahead, according to NBC Boston. She won after the third round of ranked-choice tabulation.
Pingree is a former Maine House Speaker. She also ran Gov. Janet Mills' Office of Policy Innovation and the Future. Mills endorsed her as a candidate of continuity, according to the Washington Examiner. She is also the daughter of U.S. Rep. Chellie Pingree, giving her one of the most recognizable political names in the state.
Charles Won Six Rounds With a MAGA Playbook
Bobby Charles started election night with 37.9% — the strongest first-round showing in the Republican field. He still fell short of 50%, forcing six rounds of ranked-choice counting before he was certified the winner, according to NBC Boston. He defeated runner-up Ben Midgley in the final tally.
Charles is an attorney and former State Department official under President George W. Bush. He ran an aggressive digital campaign using cartoons and AI-generated images to attack rivals. His platform calls for eliminating Maine's income tax and cutting the state's roughly $7 billion budget by $4 billion. He blasted the RCV wait as a "black box" process, saying Maine voters "cast their ballots on June 9 and we still don't have a final, certified result after nine days," according to the Washington Examiner.
Dunlap Wins CD-2 Runoff, Sets Up LePage Rematch
In Maine's 2nd Congressional District, State Auditor Matt Dunlap won the Democratic primary after his own come-from-behind run. Dunlap started election night in second place with 29.1%. After the votes of third-place finisher Jordan Wood — who had 28.8% — were redistributed, Dunlap pulled ahead. He finished with 52.5% to Joe Baldacci's 47.5%, according to Mercury News.
Dunlap will now face former Republican Gov. Paul LePage in November. He vowed to "defeat Paul LePage one more time and make sure he's never on the ballot again." The district is a steep climb for Democrats: Donald Trump carried it by nearly 10 points in 2024, giving LePage a structural advantage heading into the fall.
Oyster Farmer Platner Easily Wins Senate Primary
Graham Platner, an oyster farmer and Marine veteran, won the Democratic nomination to challenge incumbent Republican Sen. Susan Collins by a wide margin — 72.3% of the vote. His win was so decisive that the Senate race never needed to go to ranked-choice runoffs, according to Taylorville Daily News. He ran as an economic populist, declaring, "The enemy is the oligarchy... the billionaires who pay for it and the politicians who sell us out."
Platner's path to November is complicated. Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania broke with his party and publicly called Platner a "bona fide dirtbag" and a "communist." That kind of friction with national Democrats may limit outside money and support — and could give Collins, a six-term incumbent, an easier road than her party initially feared.
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