AUGUSTA — Hannah Pingree was declared the winner in the Democratic primary for governor early Friday morning in an extremely close five-way race.
In the final ranked-choice outcome, Pingree overcame an early lead from Nirav Shah. Clean energy entrepreneur Angus King III was the first candidate to be eliminated, after failing to crack double-digit support on election night, followed by Shenna Bellows and Troy Jackson.
The results were announced shortly before 2 a.m. and streamed online.
Pingree will take on Bobby Charles, the winner of the Republican primary after a ranked-choice runoff, and independent Rick Bennett, in November’s race to succeed Democratic Gov. Janet Mills.
In a statement issued Friday morning, Pingree said she was grateful for the results and thanked voters, as well as the other Democratic candidates.
“I’m grateful, I’m ready and there is no time to waste,” she said. “Heading into November, I need all of you — whether I was your first choice or your fifth or you didn’t participate in the primary at all — because beating Bobby Charles and Rick Bennett requires a diverse coalition of Mainers in this state pulling together.”
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Shah led in first-choice votes on election night, with 26.8% support, according to unofficial results from The Associated Press. He was followed by Pingree (23.3%), Jackson (21.1%) and Bellows (20.6%).
With the top four candidates all within seven percentage points of each other, it was unclear heading into the runoff who might come out on top.
Pingree, Jackson and Bellows cross-endorsed each other weeks before the election — a strategy that appears to have mostly worked.
Pingree, 49, of North Haven, ran on her record as a former lawmaker, Maine speaker of the House and official in the Mills administration. The leader in fundraising throughout the race, she was endorsed by the governor and dozens of lawmakers and state officials.
Like the other candidates, Pingree made pushing back on the Trump administration a priority in her platform, but she also pitched herself as a consensus-builder who could work across the aisle when needed.
Shah, 49, of Brunswick, ran on his record of leading Maine through the COVID-19 pandemic while he was director of the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention from 2019 to 2023. He led the race in several polls, so his early frontrunner status on election night was not surprising.
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Bellows, 51, of Manchester, stood out among the candidates for her push back on Trump in recent years, arguing on the campaign trail that she was the only one with experience standing up to the president and his administration. As secretary of state, Bellows made national headlines in 2023 with her decision to keep Trump off the Republican primary ballot.
In February, she announced she wouldn’t give undercover vehicle license plates to immigration agents, prompting state Republican leaders to discuss impeaching her.
Jackson, 57, of Allagash, spent 20 years in the Maine Legislature and served three consecutive terms as Senate president up until 2024, when he was termed out of seeking reelection.
On the campaign trail, he talked about building a political system that better represents working class Mainers and expressed frustration that bills to improve the lives of workers had been repeatedly blocked by both Republican Gov. Paul LePage and Democratic Gov. Janet Mills.
