Portland Press Herald - It's Pingree vs. Summers
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Portland Press Herald - It's Pingree vs. Summers
Out of a field of six, a clear winner emerges among Democrats.
Chellie Pingree reacts to applause from supporters at the Porthole restaurant in Portland on Tuesday. (Derek Davis/Staff Photographer)
Chellie Pingree of North Haven won a six-way race Tuesday for the Democratic nomination to run for the U.S. House in Maine's 1st Congressional District.
With 57 percent of precincts voting, Pingree, a former Senate majority leader who later served as national chair of Common Cause, had 45 percent of the vote while Adam Cote, a Portland lawyer and Iraq War veteran, had 26 percent.
Michael Brennan of Portland was third at 12 percent, followed by Ethan Strimling, a Portland state senator, at 11 percent. York County District Attorney Mark Lawrence and Augusta pediatrician Steve Meister placed a distant fifth and sixth, respectively.
"We had five hardworking opponents it's great to be the winner in that field," Pingree said in a speech to supporters at the Porthole restaurant in Portland.
The winner in the Democratic primary will face Republican Charlie Summers of Scarborough in the Nov. 4 general election. Summers, a former aide to Sen. Olympia Snowe, defeated Eliot businessman Dean Scontras with 59 percent of the vote. The District 1 seat is being vacated by Democratic Rep. Tom Allen, who is running against GOP Sen. Susan Collins.
The early returns showed that Pingree held leads in Cumberland, Knox, Sagadahoc and Kennebec counties, while Cote led in his native York County.
Strimling vowed to campaign for Pingree in November. "She will be a great standard-bearer for us," Strimling said.
Brennan said that he was proud of the campaign he ran. "We were outspent 5 to 1 by Chellie," he said. "I think we've shown in this campaign that ideas do make a difference."
Lawrence, who collected just 5 percent of the vote, said it had been a disappointing night, but said that Pingree would make a great member of Congress.
"My view is that Democrats congealed behind one person," Lawrence said, "and I believe that's going to be Chellie Pingree."
Five of the six Democratic candidates gathered Tuesday night in Portland, which is near the center of a congressional district that includes much of southern, coastal and central Maine.
Pingree, a former U.S. Senate candidate, had declared herself the race's front-runner and raised the most money in the Democratic campaign, collecting $1.36 million, according to the latest finance reports. She was followed by Strimling at $613,000; Cote at $553,000; Lawrence with $445,000; Brennan at $243,000; and Meister with $108,000.
Over the course of the race, which began last year, the six candidates raised a total of $3.86 million, according to the latest available totals from the Federal Election Commission.
Cote, a Sanford native making his first run for office, spent Tuesday at polling places in Kennebec County before moving to York County in the afternoon. Cote was expected to arrive on Tuesday night at a campaign party in the ballroom of the Eastland Park Hotel in Portland.
Strimling greeted supporters on Tuesday evening at Bull Feeney's, a pub in the city's Old Port.
Brennan, a former state lawmaker from Portland, spent the day greeting voters in and near his base of support in Portland.
Lawrence, the district attorney in York County, spent much of his day greeting voters in his home county, hitting polling places in York, Wells and Kennebunk, and voting near his home in South Berwick.
Meister, a Winthrop pediatrician, spent part of his day at polling places in his hometown and in nearby Augusta.
The winner of the tightly contested Democratic race will have some built-in advantages going into the general-election campaign.
Voter registration totals from earlier this year showed that Democrats outnumbered Republicans in the 1st Congressional District by at least 23,000.
In the 2004 presidential election, the district voted for John Kerry over George W. Bush, 55 percent to 43 percent.
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