Rick Long, a logger and legislator from Sherman, narrowly won a Republican primary against Presque Isle farmer Emily Smith. He will face Democrat Michael Carpenter in the race for a northern Maine Senate seat in November.
In the GOP battle for Senate District 2, which spans northern Penobscot County through central Aroostook County, Long received 50.8 percent of the vote in the June 16 primary. Results were released by the Maine secretary of state on July 3.
Long, who has represented House District 145 for the last six years, won a majority of votes in southern Aroostook County towns such as Island Falls, Patten and Houlton, and central Aroostook towns tended to favor Smith, a chair of the Presque Isle City Council.
Long is going on to face Carpenter, a former attorney general from 1991 to 1995 who runs a law practice in Houlton and a family-owned horse-drawn carriage business in Acadia National Park.
The winner of that election in November will succeed Republican Sen. Michael Willette, a Presque Isle real estate agent who was first elected to the state house in 2008 and won the Senate District 2 seat in 2014. Willette did not seek re-election.