Staffers validate the last races toward the end of a dayslong ranked-choice runoff process to determine the final outcomes in key Maine primary races, including both gubernatorial primaries, at the Department of Public Safety headquarters in Augusta on June 19. (Brianna Soukup/Staff Photographer)

Maine has its Democratic and Republican nominees for governor and its Democratic nominee for the 2nd Congressional District after the state concluded a days-long ranked-choice runoff process on Friday.

The crowded gubernatorial primaries featured 13 candidates, and the field was narrowed to two who will join independent Rick Bennett in the November race to succeed outgoing Gov. Janet Mills. They are Democrat Hannah Pingree and Republican Bobby Charles.

In the competitive 2nd District race, the winner, state auditor Matt Dunlap, will take on former Republican Gov. Paul LePage this fall. 

The runoffs highlighted Maine’s unique ranked-choice voting rules, which were approved by voters in 2016 and first used in 2018. Maine and Alaska are the only states that use ranked-choice voting in state elections.

While the system has now been in place for nearly a decade, it still draws criticism from Republicans, who have historically opposed ranked-choice voting and who were quick to note the time-consuming nature of the runoff process this week.

Here are the major takeaways from the runoffs that ended early Friday.

PINGREE WON IN AN EXTREMELY CLOSE DEMOCRATIC PRIMARY

Pingree, a former Maine Speaker of the House and official in Mills’ administration, often fell to the middle of the pack in polling over the course of the race, but consistently led the field of five Democrats in fundraising. She was endorsed by Mills and had the backing of many Democratic lawmakers and officials in Augusta. 

Though she finished second on election night to former Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention Director Nirav Shah, the race was close — with four of the five candidates falling within seven points of each other. In the first round, Pingree performed particularly well in the midcoast, hardly a surprise for the North Haven native.

Hannah Pingree, winner of the Democratic primary for governor, speaks during a press conference with supporters in the background Friday. (Shawn Patrick Ouellette/Staff Photographer)

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Pingree ran on her record as a lawmaker — she pushed to legalize gay marriage when she was speaker in 2009 and was a leader on environmental bills. Like the other candidates, she vowed to stand up to President Donald Trump, but also pitched herself as a consensus-builder who can work across the aisle when needed.

Pingree differentiated herself from Mills on a couple key issues, saying, for example, that she would implement tribal sovereignty reforms that Mills rejected, and that she would have signed a moratorium on data centers that Mills vetoed earlier this year.

But she’s also likely to be more moderate than some of her primary rivals, such as Secretary of State Shenna Bellows, who was backed by the progressive Maine People’s Alliance, and Troy Jackson, whom U.S. Senate candidate Graham Platner said was his top pick for governor. Pingree formed a three-way alliance with Bellows and Jackson, a savvy move that shored up her progressive bona fides while likely siphoning second and third-choice votes from Shah.

Democrats united behind Pingree following her win, including her competitors. 

“She has my wholehearted support, my sincere admiration, and every ounce of help I am able to give between now and election day,” Shah said in a statement Friday.

REPUBLICANS PICKED BOBBY CHARLES AFTER A CONTENTIOUS PRIMARY

Charles, a lawyer and former official in the federal government, held onto a sizeable election night lead to win his party’s nomination. Unlike Pingree, Charles had a more contentious relationship with his fellow primary candidates. 

They took issue with Charles’ campaign style and promises that they characterized as undeliverable, such as his pledge to cut $4 billion from the state budget, which currently sits at about $12 billion per two-year budget cycle. 

Bobby Charles addresses the media during a press conference on ranked-choice voting and the governor’s race at the Maine Department of Public Safety in Augusta on Thursday. (Rich Abrahamson/Staff Photographer)

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Asked in one debate if they would vote for Charles if he was the nominee, none of the six other Republicans in the race said they would. (The eighth candidate on the ballot, Sen. Jim Libby, R-Standish, did not participate in debates after dropping out of the race in April, though he remained on the ballot.)

Charles’ critics on the left have called him racist, pointing, for example, to a series of attacks he made last year against a Somali-American lawmaker whom he accused of not being loyal to the U.S. Last month, he released a plan to “stop the Islamification of Maine.” 

At a State House press conference Friday, Charles set up a contrast between himself and Pingree, whom he described as an “Augusta insider.” He said he would focus on affordability and lowering taxes, ending drug trafficking and eliminating fraud in state programs.

But Charles could also lose voters to Bennett, a moderate and longtime lawmaker who unenrolled from the Republican party when he launched his campaign last year. (Pingree could lose moderate Democratic votes to Bennett too, for that matter.)

Jim Deyermond, chair of the Maine Republican Party, sought to quash any notions of a fractured party while appearing alongside Charles at his Friday press conference.

“People are pulling together, no matter what you hear,” Deyermond said. “Things are going forward, and we’re going to go forward together, all of us.”

THERE WERE SOME SURPRISES

Charles’ victory in the Republican runoff wasn’t a surprise, but his runner-up was. Ben Midgley, a former fitness franchise executive who was president of the Planet Fitness chain, finished second with 40% of the vote compared to Charles’ 60% after the final round.

A political newcomer running on his business record, Midgley fell to the middle of the pack in polling throughout the race, and lacked the resources of Jonathan Bush, who raised more than twice as much money as any other candidate. He also lacked the wealthy benefactors enjoyed by Garrett Mason, who benefited from millions of dollars from a Trump-aligned political action committee funded by the billionaires Thomas Klingenstein and Richard Uihlein.

Still, there were signs Midgley might make a push to the top. He infused $750,000 of his own money into the race, giving himself a late cash-on-hand advantage, and also had the backing of former Gov. LePage’s inner circle, including LePage’s wife, who endorsed Midgley.

Also surprising was Dunlap’s victory over state Sen. Joe Baldacci, D-Bangor, despite Baldacci’s narrow lead in first-choice votes in the 2nd District race.

One pre-election poll had Baldacci up more than 20 points over both Dunlap and former congressional aide Jordan Wood. Baldacci was also backed by national Democrats, though that may have turned out to have hurt more than helped him.

REPUBLICANS STILL DON’T LIKE RANKED-CHOICE VOTING

Maine Republicans, who have a long history of opposition to ranked-choice voting, showed some signs of resignation leading up to the primaries, with several candidates saying they planned to utilize the system to rank their backup choices in the election.

“I’ve explained to people that it’s really important we use the tools available,” candidate David Jones said of ranked-choice voting in the days before the primary while he publicly unveiled his ranking of the candidates. “You can’t build a house without a hammer or a saw. That tool is here. And if we don’t use it to our favor, someone we don’t want to be governor could be governor.”

Charles resisted ranked-choice voting throughout his campaign, telling voters to only support him and not rank other candidates. He’s vowed to repeal the system if he’s elected.

Ranked-choice voting can be applied in races with three or more candidates, but it won’t be used in the November governor’s race because under state law, the system is only used in state primaries and not in the general election races for governor and the Legislature.

The state’s high court has ruled that, because of language in the state constitution, those general election winners must be determined by whoever gets the most votes, even if they don’t secure a majority.

At a press conference Thursday, Charles criticized ranked-choice voting as extremely slow. And to be fair, it did take the state more than a week from the June 9 primary to tabulate the results. State officials said all along that the process would take time since it requires bringing ballots and election data from all over the state to a central location in order for the secretary of state’s office to apply the ranked-choice methodology.

But the state’s ongoing revision of estimates for when results might be ready in the final days seemed to drag the process out and add to candidates’ angst. Results were finally delivered near 2 a.m. Friday morning.

Republicans also raised concerns over various issues that led to delays, such as the city of Biddeford initially sending a thumb drive with local results instead of state results to Augusta, and the city of Bath failing to include one of its thumb drives of results.

Chief Deputy Secretary of State Kate McBrien, who oversaw the runoffs, told reporters that those kinds of incidents are typical and part of the reason the process takes so long.

“With 487 municipalities around the state, there’s always an instance where, when we go to pick up the information, somebody forgets one little piece: a flash drive here, or the right report there,” she said. “It’s not unusual to have to go back and get that right information.”