1 day Ago
With snow still barely clinging to the ground on a soggy, chilly day as I write this, the 2026 Maine gubernatorial election is officially underway. We have more than 15 months until the primaries, and another five until the general, but Secretary of State Shenna Bellows has become the first serious candidate to make it official . Former Senate President Troy Jackson has formed an exploratory committee , and some guy named Kenneth Forrest Pinet has also filed on the Democratic side.
On the Republican side, Robert Wessels, a former selectman in Paris, is running. That’s not much, but it’s far too many candidates this early. We spend way too much time running for office in this country.
When the U.K. had its general election last year, it did the entire thing in less than a month.
We really ought to look into speeding up the election process at the state and federal levels. Presidential campaigns are one thing — the United States is much larger than any other Western democracy — but it’s completely ridiculous to spend 20 months running for governor of Maine. Thanks to this pesky little thing called the First Amendment, we can’t stop people from saying they’re running for office, but we can make little tweaks to slow down the mechanics.
For instance, we can change the state laws and rules regarding candidate filings and fundraising so that nothing can officially begin until the same year as the election. That’s plenty of time; it would be perfectly reasonable. Six months is more than enough time to wage a statewide primary, and five months is more than enough time to wage a general election.
If you need more time than that — especially in a small state like Maine — you’re probably not a serious candidate. The campaign has begun at about the same time this year that it did in the last gubernatorial campaign, with competitive primaries on both sides, in 2018. Mary Mayhew announced her campaign in June of 2017, Ken Fredette and Garrett Mason in September of 2017 and Shawn Moody in November 2017.
On the Democratic side, Mark Dion was the first in late March 2017, followed by Adam Cote in April 2017, Betsy Sweet in May, Mark Eves in July, Janet Mills in July, Diane Russell in August and Donna Dion in January 2018. So, with two candidates official and one “exploring,” we’re already on pace for 2026 — but it’s still way too early and far too long a campaign. It should be more than clear from the 2018 list that entering first is no guarantee of success.
On the Republican side, the eventual winner entered last, while on the Democratic side, the only two candidates who entered after Mills got the fewest votes. So, in fact — at least in Maine gubernatorial races, if not presidential contests — entering first is more a sign of weakness than of strength. This is no surprise.
Even without knowing anything about the timeline, I’d have ranked Shenna Bellows and Troy Jackson near the bottom of the Democratic field. Although Bellows has served in the Maine Senate and as secretary of state, her only experience running for high office was against Sen. Susan Collins in 2014, when she barely got more than 30% of the vote.
Jackson, meanwhile, started his career by losing a Maine House race as a Republican in 2000 (yes, really), winning as an independent in 2002 and eventually morphing into a stalwart Democrat. Two years ago, he lost a selectman race in his hometown of Allagash, and once he was termed out of office, Republican Sue Bernard easily won his Senate seat. It is interesting, though, that two seemingly prominent candidates didn’t wait around to enter — or explore entering — the race.
They’re not waiting, for instance, to see what Rep. Jared Golden, who’s often mentioned as a potential gubernatorial candidate, is going to do. Perhaps they’re simply not afraid of him, believing that their more progressive credentials can help them best him in a primary — and that’s a plausible theory.
The problem is that their respective political histories leave little reason to put stock in that. Gubernatorial races are less ideological than congressional ones, and Golden has proven himself to be successful in those. He’s also a skilled fundraiser who would easily be able to raise enough money for a gubernatorial race.
None of the current candidates is anywhere near as capable as Golden politically; that’s probably why they’re starting so early. We believe it’s important to offer commenting on certain stories as a benefit to our readers. At its best, our comments sections can be a productive platform for readers to engage with our journalism, offer thoughts on coverage and issues, and drive conversation in a respectful, solutions-based way.
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