AUGUSTA, Maine — Attorney General Janet Mills won Maine’s 2018 Democratic gubernatorial nomination after unofficial ranked-choice counts from the state were released Wednesday, defeating attorney Adam Cote and five others after last week’s elections.
It took eight days for the winner to be declared by Secretary of State Matt Dunlap’s office after the voting method approved by Maine voters in 2016 was used in a statewide election for the first time in U.S. history in four different races.
While Republicans picked businessman Shawn Moody for governor in a landslide on Election Day, Democrats had to wait for Mills of Farmington to be declared the winner over Cote of Sanford, lobbyist Betsy Sweet of Hallowell, former House Speaker Mark Eves of North Berwick and three others.
Mills won in a fourth and final round of ranked-choice voting with 54 percent of votes to Cote’s 46 percent after the five other candidates were eliminated. She perhaps most embodies the candidates with legislative backgrounds the party has nominated over the past eight years — a tough period for Democrats, who have receded during the era of Gov. Paul LePage.
To read the rest of “Janet Mills is Democrats’ choice in race to succeed LePage,” an article by contributing Bangor Daily News staff writer Michael Shepherd, please follow this link to the BDN online.
