AUGUSTA, Maine — Lawyer and former federal official Bobby Charles easily won the Republican gubernatorial nod following a ranked-choice count, riding a shoestring campaign to a decisive victory despite questions about whether he can unite his party.
Charles beat runner-up Ben Midgley with 60.3% of votes in a final round. He led the first round with roughly 38% of votes, while Midgley and Jonathan Bush were effectively tied around 20%. They needed Republicans to rank each other first or second to knock off Charles, but votes broke for the winner in the later rounds. He will try to succeed Gov. Janet Mills in November.
The newly minted nominee spent his campaign mimicking the style of President Donald Trump and lobbing early attacks at the rest of the field. Five of his opponents declined during a May debate to say whether they would support him if he became the nominee. Some may still skip the party’s unity breakfast scheduled for Saturday in Hallowell.
In a news conference denouncing ranked-choice voting before the results were announced early Friday, Charles said he expected to win based on solid support across the state. He added that despite what he called irregularities, he would have accepted the outcome if Bush or Midgley had won.
“No voters should have to wait nine days to find out who won the primary election,” he said. “It should take a few hours, not two weeks.”
Charles, 65, of Leeds ran a year-long campaign built almost largely on social media, AI-generated content and small meet-and-greets across Maine, spending only a fraction of what rivals put on television and still lapping the field. He made cutting crime the center of a campaign full of flamboyant promises, vowing to drive drug cartels out of Maine within two years and focusing heavily on violence and homelessness in Lewiston and Bangor.
He promised to abolish Maine’s income tax and charged that Democratic leadership had enabled tens of millions of dollars in Medicaid fraud. In the final days of his primary campaign, he pushed a plan to prevent what he called the “Islamification” of Maine, drawing allegations of racism from Democrats who are generally happy to be running against him.
The Bangor Daily News reported in May that more than a dozen federal audits criticized the State Department bureau he led for roughly 18 months early in former President George W. Bush administration, finding poor management and billions spent without accountability. Charles disputed the findings and accused the BDN of cherry-picking audits.
Republicans in Augusta have expressed anxiety about his electability. Some within the party believe his combative style could complicate the pitch to the unenrolled voters who make up the largest registration bloc in Maine and who will effectively decide the Blaine House race.
But Charles has a chance in a three-way race that will not be run with ranked-choice voting. He will face Democratic nominee Hannah Pingree, the former state House speaker, in November, with independent state Sen. Rick Bennett of Oxford also on the ballot. Democrats have had full control of Augusta since LePage left office after eight years in 2019.
Charles singled out Bennett for criticism during his news conference after lumping him in with Democrats in recent days. He said the ranked-choice wait freed up Bennett to campaign “around Maine completely unencumbered.”
“He is not an independent,” he said. “He is also not an outsider. He’s an Augusta establishment individual in different clothes.”
