(The Center Square) — Maine's crowded gubernatorial primaries will be decided by ranked choice voting after none of the candidates picked up a majority of the vote in Tuesday's elections.
In the Democratic primary, Nirav Shah, a physician and former U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention official, was ahead with 26.7% as of 10 p.m. Tuesday night when the Associated Press determined that the race would go to a run-off to replace term-limited Democratic Gov. Janet Mills. About 43% of the votes had been counted.
Hannah Pingree, a former speaker of the state House of Representatives and daughter of a U.S. Rep. Chellie Pingree, had 23.2% of the vote while former Senate President Troy Jackson had 23 % of the vote. Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows and Angus King III, son of the state's independent U.S. senator, were also on Tuesday's primary ballot.
On the Republican ticket, Bobby Charles, an attorney and former Navy intelligence officer, was leading six other GOP candidates on Tuesday's ballot, with 38.5% of the vote, according to preliminary results.
Jonathan Bush, the nephew of former Republican President George H.W. Bush, and Businessman Ben Midgley were tied with 19.7% of the vote. Other GOP candidates — Garrett Mason, Owen McCarthy, David Jones, and Robert Wessels — received single digit support from voters.
Because no one picked up more than 50% of the vote in either primary, the candidates will face a run-off in the wide-open race.
Mills, who can't run for the seat again due to term limits, was seeking the Democratic party's nod to challenge incumbent Republican Sen. Susan Collins in November's election but dropped out. Her name was still on Tuesday's Democratic primary ballot.
Much of the governor's race has focused on the state's affordable housing crisis, rising property taxes, access to health care and the impact of President Donald Trump's policies. There have been several candidate forums, where the hopefuls have clashed over the issues.
Maine is one of only two states that use ranked-choice voting, and the system factored heavily in the gubernatorial primary races.
The rules require voters to list candidates in order of preference, which comes into play in crowded races when no candidate gets 50% of the votes. When that happens, the candidate who got the least votes is eliminated, and their votes are reallocated and re-tabulated until someone wins a majority.
Ahead of the primary, Pingree, Bellows and Jackson announced that they were banding together with ranked choice voting to edge out Shah and King, stressing their work together and alignment on major political issues.
The strategy is viewed as a way of using the ranked-choice system to prevent the splitting votes between similar candidates. All three Democrats have said they will back the winning nominee.
The eventual Democratic and Republican nominees will face state Sen. Rick Bennett, who will also be on the November ballot running as an independent.
Maine's electorate has a long history of supporting independent candidates, and has elected at least two governors who ran on independent tickets. That includes Angus King, now a U.S. senator.
The nonpartisan Cook Political Report said Democrats are likely to hold onto the governor's office in the November elections, but doesn't opine on which ones are likely to win the top elected post.
