Ranked choice voting will determine Maine’s Democratic nominee for governor

The five Democratic candidates for governor are headed to a ranked-choice run off after the candidates all failed to gain a majority of votes in Tuesday’s primary.

As of 11:30 p.m. with half the votes counted, four of the five candidates had secured between 20% and 26%, making it unlikely any candidate would exceed a simple majority of 50%.

Frontrunner and former public health chief Nirav Shah had 26.8% of the votes, followed closely by former House Speaker Hannah Pingree with 22.9% and former Senate President Troy Jackson with 21.8%. Secretary of State Shenna Bellows had 20.6%, and businessman Angus King III had 8% of the votes.

The winner will go up against the winner of the Republican primary, which will also be determined in a ranked-choice runoff, and at least one prominent independent candidate. 

“While we will not have a final certified result tonight … there is still much to celebrate, just in this room,” Shah told more than 100 supporters gathered at Wild Oats Bakery and Cafe in Brunswick.

If elected in November, Shah will be the country’s first South Asian governor. “But we are not here to make history. We are here to make a difference,” he said. “That is what this campaign is about.”

With the race being too close to call, the secretary of state’s office will proceed with ranked-choice voting tabulations, which are expected to begin on Friday in Augusta and wrap before June 19. 

“For me just having the chance to change things in the state is a huge deal,” Jackson said, surrounded by a room full of his supporters at Bruno’s in Portland as they cheered at early results coming in on Tuesday night.

“Hopefully we continue to pile up votes, and I expect that it’ll probably be Monday or Tuesday next week before we actually have somebody get the 50%. I don’t know if that’s going to be me or not.”

Bellows, who is handing over election responsibilities to her staff while she’s on the ballot, told her supporters “tonight’s numbers are just the first round.” 

“Every person who put my name anywhere on the ballot … that vote is still working tonight,” she said. Everyone of those ballots is in play, and we are going to make you very proud.”

In the runoffs, last-place candidates will be eliminated first. Votes for those candidates will be redistributed to a voter’s next-ranked choice. That’s repeated until one candidate receives more than 50% of the votes.

All five candidates thanked their supporters, staff and volunteers as they ended their campaigns. 

“It can be exhausting, it can be exhilarating, but above all else, it is a profound privilege to be running to be your next governor here in the state of Maine,” Shah said.

In their speeches, the candidates once again warned voters against the threats of the Trump administration, increasing costs of living and the challenge of beating the Republican nominee in November. 

Mainers are “truly very concerned about what’s happening in the country, and they want a governor who will stand up,” Pingree told Maine Morning Star at Bayside Bowl in Portland. “We are facing some pretty critical challenges and I think very heightened concerns from families just being able to make ends meet.”

In recent weeks, their once-cordial race became more contentious, with Bellows, Jackson and Pingree forming an alliance and calling out an out-of-state group that partially funded an ad for Shah. Outside groups supporting Jackson and Shah also ran ads attacking each other, and while both candidates denounced those tactics, they largely stood by what the ads had said.

King was the only candidate not involved in the sparring. His campaign manager Heather Cuzzi told Maine Morning Star on election night that “the biggest takeaways for our campaign in particular were Angus’s continued positivity, talking about how you can have dialogue without being divisive.”

The five candidates’ policy platforms are similar, but according to their supporters, what makes them compelling is drastically different. As Secretary of State, Bellows stood up to President Donald Trump repeatedly. She has a reputation of being a grassroots fighter, endorsed by the Maine People’s Alliance. Jackson, the only working-class candidate in the race, is backed by dozens of unions and Vermont U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders. King’s supporters praise him for being a capable leader whose innovative business record has prepared him well for being the chief executive. Pingree is endorsed by more than a 100 state lawmakers as well as Gov. Janet Mills, because they think her track record makes her the best person to take on the job. And Shah describes politics as problem solving, with his supporters admiring his measured, rational approach. 

Democrats have held a trifecta in state government since Mills was first elected in 2019, but the state has not elected consecutive governors from the same party since the 1950s.