2010 Maine gubernatorial election


The 2010 Maine gubernatorial election took place on November 2, 2010, to elect the governor of Maine. Incumbent [Maine Maine Democratic Party|Democratic Party|Democratic] Governor John Baldacci was term-limited and could not seek a third consecutive term. Primary elections took place on June 8, 2010. The candidates who appeared on the November ballot were : Eliot Cutler, Paul LePage, Libby Mitchell, Shawn Moody, and Kevin Scott.
With 94% of precincts reporting on the day after the election, the Bangor Daily News declared LePage the winner, carrying 38.1% of the votes. Cutler was in second place with 36.7% of the votes, while Mitchell was a distant third with 19%. Moody and Scott had 5% and 1%, respectively. Two days after the election, with 99% of precincts reporting, LePage's lead over Cutler had widened to more than 10,000 votes. This election was the first since 1990 that Maine elected a Republican governor.

Democratic primary

Candidates

On ballot

Write-in

  • Donna Dion, former Mayor of Biddeford. Did not appear on the ballot due to lack of petition signatures, but continued her campaign in the primary as a write-in candidate.

Withdrawn

  • Dawn Hill, State Representative. Hill withdrew from the race on January 1, 2010, citing the crowded field of candidates.
  • John G. Richardson, former Commissioner of Economic and Community Development and former Speaker of the House. Richardson withdrew from the race on April 26 amid allegations that some of his campaign workers had not followed proper procedures for collecting donations to qualify him for Maine Clean Election funding. The primary ballots had already been printed before Richardson withdrew from the race, so Richardson's name appeared on the ballot even though he was no longer a candidate.
  • Peter Truman, former state representative and convicted forger. Did not appear on the ballot due to lack of petition signatures.

Declined

  • Brian Bolduc, state representative
  • Tom Allen, former U.S. Representative

Results

At 11:32 p.m. EDT, WCSH declared Libby Mitchell the winner of the Democratic primary.

Republican primary

Candidates

On ballot

Declined

Results

At 11:19 p.m. EDT, WCSH declared Paul LePage the winner of the GOP primary.

Independents

Candidates on the ballot

Write-in candidates

  • John Jenkins, former state senator, former mayor of both Auburn and Lewiston, and a 2002 gubernatorial candidate. Jenkins, who won his most recent mayoral campaign by write-in, declared he would run for Governor of Maine if 5,000 people followed his Facebook fan page within 45 days.
  • Beverly Cooper-Pete. Did not appear on the ballot due to lack of petition signatures, but continued her campaign as a write-in candidate.

Disqualified candidates

  • Alex Hammer, business owner and self-published author. Did not appear on the ballot due to not meeting the deadline for turning in petition signatures. Hammer attempted to turn in some of the signatures electronically, but the Secretary of State ruled that such methods were not allowed. Hammer filed suit to appear on the ballot in Penobscot County Superior Court on June 28, 2010. On September 28, 2010, the judge upheld the Secretary of State's decision.

Withdrawn

  • Samme Bailey. Did not appear on the ballot due to lack of petition signatures.
  • Augustus Edgerton. Did not appear on the ballot due to lack of petition signatures.
  • Michael Heath, former leader of the Christian Civic League of Maine. Withdrew from the race due to lack of petition signatures.
  • John Whitcomb. Did not appear on the ballot due to lack of petition signatures.

Maine Green Independent Party

The Maine Green Independent Party did not have a gubernatorial candidate on the ballot, as no candidate collected required number of signatures.

Withdrawn

General election

Polling

''* Shawn Moody and Kevin Scott, two Independent candidates who appeared on the ballot, were not offered as choices in the Rasmussen polls.''

Results

Despite polling in the low teens as late as mid-October, Cutler surged in the final weeks of the campaign to surpass Mitchell and finish second. LePage won with only 37.6% of the vote, the second-lowest percentage for any winning Maine gubernatorial candidate behind independent Angus King's 35.7% in 1994. LePage was considered to have benefitted from vote splitting between the Democrat Mitchell and the Democrat-turned-independent Cutler. Mitchell would ultimately win just 18.8% of the vote, carrying only Kittery and Ogunquit in the extreme south of the state, the Penobscot Indian Island Reservation, and a handful of staunchly Democratic municipalities in northern Aroostook County near the Canadian border. Cutler carried many other traditionally Democratic areas of the state, such as the Greater Portland area and Mount Desert Island. Mitchell's performance was the worst for any Democratic gubernatorial candidate since 1998, when Democrat Thomas J. Connolly would win just 12% of the vote in the midst of King's 16-county landslide re-election. This election remains the last time the Democratic nominee failed to carry a single county in a Maine gubernatorial election.
In addition, a number of municipalities and voting precincts finished as exact ties in official results: the municipalities of Bancroft, Dallas Plantation, Gilead, Madrid, Orient, Vanceboro, and Wesley, finished as exact ties between LePage and Cutler, while a precinct for voters in unincorporated eastern Aroostook County finished as a tie between Cutler and fellow independent Shawn Moody, with each receiving one vote.

Counties that flipped from Democratic to Republican

Counties that flipped from Democratic to Independent

Aftermath

Paul LePage and Eliot Cutler would face off again in 2014, though Cutler would ultimately garner just 8% of the vote in that election. LePage would win re-election that year with over 48% of the vote, his closest opponent being Democrat Mike Michaud, who received 43% of the vote. In 2022, Cutler would be arrested for possession of child pornography, resulting in him serving seven months in jail and being required to register as a sex offender for the rest of his life.
Shawn Moody, who finished the 2010 election with 5% of the vote as an independent, would become a Republican in 2017. He was the Republican nominee for governor in 2018, an election he would lose to Democrat Janet Mills.