The dust still hasn’t settled in the GOP primary race for Maine’s 1st Congressional District.
Unofficial results show Mark Holbrook leading Ande Allen Smith by about 60 votes. The close contest may be one for the record books, according to the secretary of state’s office.
Meanwhile, Gov. Paul LePage’s efforts to influence the outcome of a couple of GOP state Senate primaries appears to have produced mixed results.
For Holbrook, the uncertain outcome in Maine’s 1st Congressional District Republican race was just another dive on the roller-coaster that was Tuesday’s balloting.
“This morning at around 7 a.m., I was down by 209 votes and six precincts left and the next time it updated we were up by 39, so we increased a lot — this is like watching, I don’t know, 100 babies being born all at once,” Holbrook says.
Neither Holbrook nor Smith were in the mood to claim victory or concede in their effort to oppose incumbent 1st District U.S. Rep. Chellie Pingree this fall. The campaign has taken its toll on whatever friendship ever existed between the two, and was apparent during a WCSH televised debate that ended with Holbrook refusing to shake Smith’s hand.
Although Holbrook has attempted to portray himself as the most conservative candidate, it hasn’t translated into dollars, with recent campaign spending reports showing Smith outraising Holbrook by a 3-1 margin. Still, Holbrook says he preferred to be the grassroots candidate in the race.
“We were up against an opponent who jumped into the race back in January and was very well funded and outspent us 4- or 5-1 and had all kinds of paid staff, and as he alleged, experts in the field, working for him,” Holbrook says. “So we’ve kind of got this grassroots rag-tag group that’s doing very well.”
“It’s unusual to have a congressional recount, we haven’t had one in the whole time I’ve been secretary of state, although it has happened in the past,” says Maine Secretary of State Matt Dunlap. “It’s very close margin here.”
Dunlap says it will be up to the apparent loser to request a recount. The use of voter tabulation machines by so many towns in the district, he says, makes large vote discrepancies unlikely. But with fewer than 100 votes separating the two candidates, he says a change in the outcome could not be ruled out.
That will be less true for many of the legislative primaries where the ballots are counted by hand. Some of those races Tuesday involved state Senate primaries in which Gov. Paul LePage had weighed in to oppose fellow Republican incumbents.
In Sagadahoc County’s Senate District 23, incumbent Republican Sen. Linda Baker ultimately conceded to Guy Lebida, who had the backing of the governor. However, LePage’s efforts to derail Rep. Joyce Maker’s bid for an open Senate seat in Washington and portions of Hancock counties went nowhere.
Maker unofficially defeated Calais city councilman William Howard III with 69 percent of the vote. Her take on LePage’s attempt to torpedo her campaign?
“He didn’t elect me and he portrayed that I didn’t support Republicans’ votes, and you of all people have seen the votes, I do really well I would say — 90 percent of the time I vote with Republicans, but there are some issues that I can’t,” she says.
Other legislative primaries that generated some attention among Maine’s elections watchers included two Democratic races. Rep. Justin Chenette defeated veteran lawmaker Rep. Barry Hobbins in York County’s Senate District 31 race and Portland Rep. Ben Chipman bested Rep. Diane Russell and a third candidate to secure the Senate District 27 nomination.