Maine

Troy Jackson won 53.1% to 46.9% and took a Senate seat Republicans had held. Hannah Pingree, a Democrat, won the governor’s office with 54.4%, 16.9 points ahead of Republican Bobby Charles, the nearest of her opponents, and will succeed Janet Mills.^{1, 2} The 2nd District went the other way. Former Gov. Paul LePage led after election day without a majority, Democrat Matt Dunlap conceded two days later, and the state’s ranked-choice tabulation on November 12 confirmed LePage at 50.8% to 49.2%, a margin of 5,458 votes. He will be the only Republican member of Congress from New England.^{3, 4, 5} Chellie Pingree kept the 1st District for the Democrats by 32.2 points, so the delegation is now split one and one.

Maine hardly moved. Kamala Harris carried it by 6.9 points and Jackson won it by 6.1, a difference of 0.8 toward the Republicans. Both parties drew fewer votes than in 2024, in nearly equal measure: Jackson drew 86 votes for every 100 of Harris’s, Collins 88 for every 100 of Donald Trump’s. The votes counted come to 104% of the 2022 total and 86% of the 2024 presidential vote. The statewide House vote was D+16.2, against D+12.0 in 2024.

Where the vote moved, it mostly moved toward Collins. The Bangor area went from R+10.9 to R+14.9, a shift of 4.0 points, and the Lewiston area from R+6.1 to R+8.7. The Portland area, which casts 43% of the vote, barely changed, at D+25.1 after D+25.3. The rest of the state went from R+5.9 to R+6.7.

No county changed sides in either direction, and 12 of the 16 moved toward the Republicans. Aroostook County made the biggest move among the larger counties, from R+26.2 to R+31.0 on 28,061 votes. Piscataquis County moved further, 7.3 points, to R+36.5. Cumberland County, the largest, went from D+36.3 to D+34.8. Kennebec County, around Augusta, moved the most toward Jackson and ended in a near tie, R+0.2.

Democrats keep full control of state government, and their legislative majorities grew.^{1, 2, 6} Our count has the Senate at 24 Democrats and 11 Republicans and the House at 88 Democrats, 60 Republicans and 3 independents; the Portland Press Herald puts one more House seat with the Republicans, and says the independents plan to caucus with the Democrats.¹ The Maine Constitution requires two-thirds of each house to pass a bill over a veto. Democrats now have that in the Senate and are short of it in the House, where two-thirds is 101 seats.^{1, 7} Senate Democrats re-elected Mattie Daughtry as Senate president, and House Democrats said they would renominate Ryan Fecteau as speaker. “I’m incredibly proud of this supermajority, and it was not the result of national political environment,” Daughtry said in the Press Herald on November 6.¹

Pingree has pledged to invest $100 million a year in housing, and she must send lawmakers a balanced budget proposal by early February, the Bangor Daily News reported.² Her first concern is heating. She and incoming legislative leaders are in early talks on an emergency bill to help low-income households pay for heat, to move soon after lawmakers convene in January if Congress does not add money to the federal heating aid program. “Right off the bat, I am very worried about the price of heating oil and just sort of basic safety for Maine people,” she told the Press Herald on November 12.⁸

The new majorities also choose the secretary of state. Maine voters do not elect a secretary of state: the Legislature chooses one every two years by joint ballot, and the lawmakers elected on November 3 meet on December 2 to pick the secretary of state, attorney general and treasurer. Secretary of State Shenna Bellows has said she will seek another term and had no challenger as of November 9.^{2, 7, 9} Maps are drawn differently. An apportionment commission proposes legislative and congressional plans, and the Legislature must enact one by a two-thirds vote of each house, subject to the governor; if it fails, the Supreme Judicial Court draws the districts.⁷ Judges other than probate judges are nominated by the governor and confirmed through a legislative committee and the Senate, so no seat on the Supreme Judicial Court was on the ballot; probate judges are elected by the voters of their counties.⁷

In Lewiston, Mayor Carl Sheline and former City Council President Rick LaChapelle go to a December runoff after neither won a majority in a five-way race, the Bangor Daily News reported.¹⁰ In Portland, three newcomers won school board seats without opposition: Lucia Rico at large, Alexandra Reissman in District 4 and Rich Leone in District 5. Former mayor Kate Snyder and Ilma López won City Council seats in ranked-choice counts, and the District 4 council race stood at 3,421 votes to 3,409 on November 4, with the trailing candidate exploring whether to request a recount.¹¹

Of the offices in our count, Republicans held only the Senate seat going in, and they lost it. They kept much of the map: Collins carried 9 of the 16 counties, and she carried the 2nd District area by double digits while losing statewide, the Press Herald reported. Republicans took House District 96 in Lewiston by a few dozen votes, the one legislative seat they gained.^{1, 2, 12} They are left with their smallest state Senate caucus since 1984 and their smallest House caucus since 2018, and chose Sen. Trey Stewart and Rep. Kenneth Fredette to lead them. “We helped save Maine from the calamity that happened to the rest of the country,” the state party chairman, James Deyermond, said.¹²

Neither of Maine’s U.S. Senate seats will be on the ballot in 2028. Pingree’s four-year term begins in January 2027, and the office will next be on the ballot in 2030; a governor who has served two consecutive terms may not run for a third in a row.⁷ The constitution sets the next redrawing of districts for 2031, ten years after 2021.⁷

A recount is pending in a Windham House race, where Republican Rep. Barbara Bagshaw lost to Bradley Youngs by 139 votes, 2,637 to 2,498, the Press Herald reported on November 9.¹³ The Lewiston mayor’s runoff is also still to come, and in Portland the trailing District 4 council candidate was exploring a recount.^{10, 11}