Politics
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Longshot Republican gubernatorial candidate Robert Wessels is taking a role in rival Jonathan Bush’s campaign in an odd effect of Maine’s ranked-choice voting primary.
Wessels will be the “grassroots chair” for Bush’s campaign in the 2nd Congressional District, the campaign said in a Thursday statement. It is a volunteer position. Wessels is not abandoning his candidacy but said he will rank the health tech entrepreneur second on the June 9 ballot.
“I’m excited that his plans to shrink government line up so well with my own,” Wessels said in a statement.
The move, which was first reported by the conservative Maine Wire, adds a strange wrinkle to the seven-way primary for the nomination to replace Gov. Janet Mills. The field is aggressively moving to take down polling frontrunner Bobby Charles, who skipped two debates this week, including one on Thursday hosted by the Bangor Daily News and CBS News 13.
Five candidates will attend that debate. Wessels did not meet debate criteria that include reaching 5% support in an independent poll of the race. Charles cited that as the reason he was skipping the debate, although he also declined a Tuesday WMTW debate that included all candidates. He is set to attend one next week.
It leaves Bush, lobbyist and former Maine Senate Majority Leader Garrett Mason, former fitness executive Ben Midgley, entrepreneur Owen McCarthy and real estate CEO David Jones to share the stage on Thursday.
Bush, Mason, Midgley and Jones have criticized Charles heavily of late for his near-impossible promises to drastically cut both income and property taxes. A pro-Bush political group began running an ad this week with an AI-generated depiction of President Barack Obama tapping Charles on the shoulder.