Jared Golden

BANGOR — State Sen. Joe Baldacci looked to be leading the Democratic field in Maine’s 2nd District primary Tuesday night. But the race looks headed for a ranked-choice runoff.

Baldacci, a 61-year-old former Bangor mayor who was endorsed by the national House Democratic campaign arm, had garnered about 33% of the votes as of 10:40 p.m. Trailing closely behind were Dunlap, a 61-year-old former secretary of state and Sportsman’s Alliance of Maine leader from Old Town (29%) and Wood, a 26-year-old Lewiston native who previously worked in Washington (28%). Loud looked poised to finish a distant fourth.

The winner will face Republican former Gov. Paul LePage for the right to succeed U.S. Rep. Jared Golden, a moderate Democrat who opted against seeking a fifth term this year.

Maine’s ranked-choice voting system allows for a redistribution of votes based on second choices if no candidate gets more than 50% support in the initial round. The retabulation process goes until a candidate receives more than 50% of votes. State officials have said the process could take up to two weeks to determine final results.

The 2nd District, which covers much of Maine’s northern half, has backed President Donald Trump in each of his elections. During his four victorious runs for the seat, Golden, 43, found a winning recipe that included voting with the GOP on certain issues while remaining more progressive on other matters such as abortion rights and campaign finance to consistently beat back Republican challengers.

The four Democrats in this year’s race have all positioned themselves to Golden’s left on a variety of topics, such as Trump’s aggressive tariffs and the Iran war.

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The primary started out fairly friendly before schisms formed when Baldacci received the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee’s support in May. Dunlap, Wood and Loud joined together to bash Baldacci for both that endorsement and for having a national super PAC run ads on his behalf.

Still, Dunlap has benefited from outside spending as well. A shadowy PAC that appears tied to Republicans started spending money in May to go after Baldacci while ostensibly supporting Dunlap. (Dunlap said he did not want the super PAC support.)

The Democratic winner is hoping to hold onto the seat for the party, which only needs to flip a few seats nationally to take back the U.S. House from Republicans.

LePage, who was a combative governor from 2011 to 2019 with a penchant for controversial comments, has Trump’s support. He did not face a primary challenge Tuesday. And on Monday, Trump wrote a Truth Social post praising LePage and bashing Dunlap, predicting the latter would advance out of the primary.

LePage, 77, moved back from Florida to Maine to seek a political comeback that would make him one of the oldest freshman House members in history.

This is a developing story.