AUGUSTA, Maine — Democrat Hannah Pingree has won Maine's race for governor, defeating Republican Bobby Charles and independent Rick Bennett in a three-way contest the Associated Press called at 11:29 p.m. Eastern Time on Tuesday, November 3 — an hour after the Bangor Daily News and Decision Desk HQ first projected her victory at 10:29 p.m. Pingree, 50, a former Speaker of the Maine House who spent six years as a chief adviser to Governor Janet Mills, will succeed Mills — Maine's first female chief executive and her own former boss — and keep the Blaine House, the governor's official residence in Augusta, in Democratic hands for at least four more years.
Source: Associated Press election results — Governor, Maine
The shape of the win was set early and never really moved. When the Bangor Daily News and Decision Desk HQ called the race at 10:29 p.m., Pingree stood at 48.9 percent to Charles's 42.9 percent and Bennett's 8.2 percent; as counting continued into Wednesday morning the margin widened, with Ocean State Media reporting Pingree ahead 54.8 percent to 37.2 percent, Bennett holding at about 8 percent, with more than three-quarters of Maine's precincts reporting. All results remain unofficial until Maine's towns complete their returns and the state certifies the outcome.
Source: Ocean State Media / New England News Collaborative — Pingree defeats Charles and Bennett
Both opponents conceded by telephone on election night. Bennett called Pingree to concede, telling WMTW, as reported by the Bangor Daily News: “I wished her well and told her that her success is Maine's success. I know that she's a committed public servant.” Charles also called to concede, telling his supporters in Bangor: “Join me in a commitment to the future tonight and wish good luck to Hannah, as we commit ourselves to a better future in Maine.” Pingree declared victory only after both calls, telling supporters in Portland, according to WMTW: “We have fought hard these last months for each other. We believe Maine's future was worth the fight.”
Speaking later to a packed crowd of party supporters in Portland, Pingree struck a lighter note first — “Tonight is actually about celebrating. We've earned it. Hug somebody, text your mom,” she said, to laughter. “We've all earned it. And then we're gonna get to work.” She then turned to the theme her campaign was built on: “I've spent a lot of time thinking about my kids and your kids. I think about whether they will be able to afford to build a life here, whether they'll feel safe and hopeful about the future, whether they'll inherit a democracy that works, a healthy planet, communities where neighbors still look out for each other. I believe that they will.”
Source: Ocean State Media / New England News Collaborative — Pingree defeats Charles and Bennett
Speaker at 31, governor at 50 — and a mother in Congress
Pingree's victory continues a political career that began more than two decades ago, when the North Haven resident was elected to the Maine House of Representatives at age 25. Six years later her peers elected her House Speaker — at the time, the youngest woman in the country ever to hold such a post. After leaving the legislature she served six years as a chief adviser to Mills, spearheading initiatives on affordable housing and climate that she has now pledged to continue or expand as governor. The family dimension is unusual even by Maine standards: after her inauguration in January, she will rejoin her mother — longtime Democratic U.S. Representative Chellie Pingree, who handily won a 10th term in Maine's 1st Congressional District on the same night — as one of the top-ranking Democrats in the state, a mother in Congress and a daughter in the governor's office at the same time.
Her path through her own party was not a coronation. Pingree won the Democratic nomination in June only after a ranked-choice runoff: she received the second-most first-preference votes behind an opponent named Shah, then defeated him after four rounds of ranked-choice tabulation by 56 percent to 44 percent in the final round. From that night on, she led the general-election polls — often by double digits — and led in fundraising by a wide margin: she had raised nearly $5 million as of the last reports filed with the Maine Ethics Commission, against roughly $2 million for Charles and just shy of $1 million for Bennett, money that funded television advertising and a statewide canvassing campaign.
Source: Ocean State Media / New England News Collaborative — Pingree defeats Charles and Bennett
Affordability decided it — and the Mills question
The contest was dominated by the cost of living. Pingree pledged to focus on the affordability issues voters named first — expanding access to affordable housing, addressing the climate crisis, taking steps to reduce property taxes, and launching a state-backed “public option” for Mainers seeking more affordable health care. She also campaigned openly against President Donald Trump, arguing he had siphoned money from Mainers' pockets through his tariffs, the war with Iran, and the elimination of health care subsidies and safety-net programs. Charles, a former naval intelligence officer and former assistant U.S. secretary of state, ran on a pledge to “restore common sense” and fiscal responsibility, accusing Mills and Pingree of progressive policies that drove up electricity and daily living costs while growing the state budget — and predicting a Pingree administration would be “Mills 2.0.” A majority of voters appeared to reject that case. In his concession speech in Bangor, Charles pledged to keep fighting on high property taxes, rising electricity costs, trust in government and what he portrayed as fraud in state government: “Many wanted change, but not enough — not yet,” he said. “Eighteen months ago, Maine was in peril. It remains in peril now. I am proud of what we built together. This is not a one-off campaign. It is the start of a movement.”
Bennett's 8 percent was itself a story. A longtime state lawmaker from Oxford County, Bennett was a Republican until last year and formerly served as chairman of the Maine Republican Party; he unenrolled, he said, because he felt both parties had become obstacles to tackling major issues, and campaigned on bridging the partisan divide as an independent. His share was not enough to change the outcome, but a former state GOP chairman taking one vote in twelve on an independent line is a measure of the cross-currents inside Maine's Republican electorate on a night when Democrats were winning across the state and the country.
Interstate 95 runs the length of Maine to the border crossing at Houlton, New Brunswick — one of the road-and-border corridors Punjabi owner-operators drive between the U.S. Northeast and Canada. Maine's governor sets state highway and winter-road priorities on that corridor, state policy on heating and electricity costs in one of America's coldest states, and the state's posture toward the Canadian trade that Trump's tariffs have made a live kitchen-table issue in every Maine border town. Pingree campaigned explicitly on tariff costs; how a governor who won on that argument governs on trade, roads and energy is a story that runs straight down I-95.
The night around her — and what happens next
Maine's governor's race was overshadowed all autumn by the state's U.S. Senate contest, and on the night the two results landed together: Democrat Troy Jackson ousted Republican Senator Susan Collins in the Senate race, while Democrats nationally won control of both the U.S. Senate and the U.S. House. Pingree thanked both of her opponents, and the Mainers who did not vote for her: “I hear you, I respect you, and I will work just as hard for you as I will for those who voted for me. Because this isn't about who voted for who, it's about what we can accomplish together.” Counting continues until Maine certifies the result; Pingree is due to be inaugurated in January 2027 — succeeding the term-limited Mills for a four-year term — and her first tests are already named in her own victory speech and platform: a property-tax step, the health-care public option, housing money, and an electricity-cost fight with a legislature her party knows well, in a state that has just told both parties, in two different races, that affordability outranks everything else.