PORTLAND, Maine — With the Democratic gubernatorial primary just days away, candidates Troy Jackson and Nirav Shah each held separate press conferences Thursday in Portland, both condemning outside groups running negative ads against them — while insisting their own criticisms of each other are entirely legitimate.
Why It Matters
The Maine governor’s race could hinge on which Democrat voters trust most on abortion rights and campaign finance transparency. With a University of New Hampshire poll showing the two candidates essentially tied for first place, the final days of campaigning have turned sharply negative — fueled in part by out-of-state political money.
What Happened
An ad targeting Jackson was paid for by 314 Action, a Washington, D.C.-based political action committee, while an ad attacking Shah was funded by the Working Families Party, a Brooklyn-based progressive organization. Both spots drew criticism from the candidates they targeted — and neither disavowed their own pointed criticism of the other.
Shah argued the problem with the outside-funded spots was their format, not the general practice of contrast campaigning. “My aversion, and the tactics that I am particularly calling up, are these 10-second ads that are snippets and headlines rather than substance and fact,” he said. “They are designed to scare, they are designed to divide, they are not designed to educate.”
Jackson, for his part, defended his decade-long record on abortion and reproductive rights while drawing a contrast with his rival. “My record’s been sterling over the last 10 years,” he said. “In fact, I’ve been the person that’s been fighting the hardest on these issues while he wasn’t even in the state of Maine.”
The Abortion Record Dispute
The attack ad targeting Jackson centered on his history on abortion — a particularly sensitive topic in a Democratic primary. The ad alleged his position shifted over time, and the underlying record is more complicated than either side fully acknowledges.
Jackson received a perfect approval rating from Maine Right to Life in both 2003 and 2010, and he voted in 2011 for legislation that would have established fetal personhood as well as a 24-hour waiting period for abortions. Both measures align with positions typically associated with abortion opponents.
In subsequent years, however, his voting record moved in the opposite direction. He introduced legislation in 2022 requiring state-regulated insurance plans to cover prescription contraceptives, and he co-sponsored a 2023 law permitting abortion care later in pregnancy when medically necessary. He currently holds a 100% rating from Planned Parenthood of Northern New England and has pledged to add Planned Parenthood funding to the state budget if elected.
Both Jackson and Shah have said they support enshrining reproductive rights in Maine’s state constitution, giving them similar stated positions heading into the primary.
Shah’s Reproductive Health Platform
Shah has outlined a set of executive actions he says he would take on his first day in office, including an order to enforce Maine’s existing shield law protecting healthcare providers who offer abortion services. His announced plan also calls for publishing a statewide guide to reproductive health access and directing a review of insurance barriers that may limit coverage for reproductive care.
The ad targeting Shah, funded by the Working Families Party, focused on his ties to outside interests and wealthy donors — a line of criticism Jackson has not backed away from, even as he condemned the format of the outside-funded spot. For more on how outside money and residency questions have factored into this campaign cycle, see our earlier coverage of challenges to congressional candidate residency claims using Florida tax records.
What’s Next
With polling showing Jackson and Shah in a virtual dead heat, the primary outcome remains uncertain. Voters will head to the polls in the coming days, and whichever candidate wins the Democratic nomination will face a general election in a state that has trended toward competitive statewide races in recent cycles.
The battle over outside spending in Maine’s gubernatorial race also reflects a broader national pattern. Republicans in Congress have separately moved to reduce funding for election security infrastructure as debates over campaign finance oversight intensify at the federal level.