Chamber of the House of Representatives in the Maine State House in Augusta. (Photo by Jim Neuger/Maine Morning Star)
Though every seat in the Maine Legislature is on the ballot this November, the outcome for several of those races is already apparent due to candidates running unopposed.
In total, there are 35 seats in the Maine Senate and 151 in the House of Representatives. Thirty of those elections only have one person running, so while it isn’t enough to determine which party will hold a majority, it does account for almost one in five seats in the House.
Two unopposed candidates are running for the Senate while 28 are teed up for seats in the House, where Democrats are on defense trying to maintain the narrow control they held last session.
Unchallenged Senate seats
Both unchallenged seats in the Senate — Districts 21 and 28 — will be filled by veteran Democratic lawmakers: state Sen. Peggy Rotundo and outgoing Speaker of the House Rachel Talbot Ross. That guarantees two seats for the party, which will need a total of 18 members to maintain its majority in the chamber.
Rotundo is the incumbent for District 21, which covers Lewiston in Androscoggin County. Though this will be her second consecutive term, Rotundo was first elected to the Maine Senate in 2000 and served four terms before moving to the House for another four terms.
Maine statute limits legislators to four consecutive terms in either chamber, but they are allowed to move between the two, which resets the clock on their term count.
As is the case with the outgoing Speaker; Talbot Ross is finishing her fourth consecutive term in the House and running unchallenged for Senate District 28, which covers parts of Portland and Long Island in Cumberland County.
District 28 was most recently held by state Sen. Ben Chipman, a Democrat who termed out of the Senate and withdrew from a bid for the House ahead of the June primary.
Unchallenged House seats
Of the 28 unchallenged races in the House, 16 candidates are Democrats and 12 are Republicans, giving Democrats a slight edge in their hope of retaining a majority, which requires a total of 76 members.
Most of those unchallenged seats will be filled by their incumbents, though six will be filled by newcomers, including the seat Talbot Ross is vacating in District 118, which will be filled by Democrat Yusuf Yusuf.
Just two of the Republicans running unopposed are not incumbents.
Mathew McIntyre is taking over District 18 from Meldon Carmichael, who held the seat for the past two terms. The other non-incumbent, shoo-in Republican is a veteran politician. Ken Fredette, a former Maine House minority leader who served four terms from 2010 to 2018.
But Fredette, who will be taking over the District 33 seat, is not the only veteran making a comeback. Former Democratic Speaker of the House Ryan Fecteau, who served four terms from 2014 to 2022, will represent District 132.
Democrat Grayson Lookner is running unopposed for a third term in District 113, but Nov. 5 won’t be entirely without suspense for the Portland representative. He’s also running to be an at-large Portland city councilor to encourage more coordination between the municipal and state governments, as explained on his campaign website.