Since Gov. Janet Mills opted not to end her career with an embarrassing loss by dropping out of the U.S. Senate race, let’s turn our focus to Maine’s gubernatorial race.
Before we continue: We must not underestimate this event. Mills dropping out was, by far, the most shocking decision in Maine political history since Olympia Snowe decided not to run for re-election back in 2012.
If it’s not quite as sudden, it’s much more sad. Here we have a perfectly capable governor (even if I disagreed with her about nearly everything) being summarily dispatched by a controversial and previously unknown candidate.
With that primary race now as good as over, I want to talk about the gubernatorial primary, now less than a month away.
On the Democratic side, former Maine CDC director Nirav Shah has, surprisingly, appeared to have established a lead. Angus King III, the son of the U.S. Senator, appears to be doing surprisingly well, while Secretary of State Shenna Bellows and former Speaker of the House Hannah Pingree are also, somehow, clearly at the head of the pack.
Former Senate President Troy Jackson appears to be lagging, which, to be honest, isn’t much of a surprise; Jackson probably should’ve pivoted to Maine’s Second District race when he had the chance.
Meanwhile, it would appear that Republicans have a clear frontrunner: Bobby Charles, an attorney and former U.S. assistant secretary of state. Certainly other candidates in this race seem viable enough, especially healthcare executive Jonathan Bush, former fitness CEO Ben Midgley and former Senate Majority Leader Garrett Mason.
The remaining candidates — David Jones, Owen McCarthy and Robert Wessels (Jim Libby dropped out at the beginning of April) — appear to be trailing firmly behind those four.
There are two problems, though, with attempting to formulate a clear picture of the gubernatorial (I’m not afraid of the word, unlike many) race: There’s been a relative scarcity in public polling.
All of the public polls have shown Bobby Charles with a significant lead on the Republican side, but they’ve bounced around with all of the other candidates. Digging more deeply where we can, none of the candidates seem to be very well-known or enjoying particularly entrenched support.
On the Democratic side, it’s more muddled.
Nirav Shah has had a lead for most of the race, but it’s softer than Charles’ lead — and that in and of itself is hard to trust. Angus King III has polled well, but then some polls have also had Hannah Pingree close to him, while Shenna Bellows and Troy Jackson have been bouncing around each other in the numbers.
It’s equally hard to judge the race based on fundraising or vibes. Charles has done well with fundraising, but so have the other candidates in various ways. Bush, for instance, has plenty of his own money to spend, while Garrett Mason has benefited from enormous support from a Political Action Committee.
That PAC has given Mason the most consistent TV presence of any Republican candidate, save perhaps Charles.
Meanwhile, Democrats have all seemingly done well raising money, but their presence hasn’t been felt as much on the air. While Bellows launched her first TV ad recently, I haven’t seen it yet; I have seen King’s ad where he plays hockey. Given the way the Bruins season ended, he might want to retire that one, although it probably wasn’t cheap to film.
All of that being said, it means that both primaries will probably come down to ranked-choice voting, which is almost inevitable with such a wide, muddled field. The Democrats, at least, acknowledge this reality: Pingree, Jackson, and Bellows did a cross-endorsement forming an alliance recently. If their supporters listen to them, their combined support should be enough to lift one of them past King or Shah, who apparently weren’t invited to the cool kids’ table.
The Republicans, meanwhile, have done no such coordination, preferring to continue to pretend that ranked-choice voting doesn’t exist at all. While I understand that, they might want to start rethinking that strategy.
If the polls are right about Bobby Charles being the frontrunner in the Republican primary — and, right now, we have no evidence that they aren’t — simply winging it and hoping for the best isn’t going to work out well for any of them.
Instead, they ought to consider working together and forming some sort of alliance, lest their division allow Charles to win by default. Like them, I’m opposed to ranked-choice voting, but it’s the law now, and they ought to consider how to use it properly.