Former SpaceX engineer Phillip Rench of Waterboro is ending his U.S. Senate bid, citing an undisclosed personal development.
Rench was seeking to challenge Republican U.S. Sen. Susan Collins next year as an independent and was one of the first candidates to get into the contest.
Despite early press attention, his bid was eclipsed by other candidates who have built full-fledged campaign operations.
Rench made his announcement in a Facebook post Sunday in which he lamented that social issues are dominating the debate instead of affordability.
He indicated that he’s interested in running for the Senate in 2030 “under the right conditions.”
This story appears through a media partnership with Maine Public.