AUGUSTA, Maine — Secretary of State Shenna Bellows, former Maine public health chief Nirav Shah, brewer Dan Kleban and former 2nd Congressional District candidate Jordan Wood dropped out of the Democratic race for U.S. Senate on Sunday, following a dominant performance in county caucuses by rival Troy Jackson.
Bellows was the first major candidate to drop out of the race. Shah announced he was suspending his campaign shortly before 6 p.m., and Kleban followed about an hour later.
“I entered this race because I could not accept the idea of Susan Collins gliding to a sixth term at the very moment Maine families are being forced to pay the price for her votes,” Shah said in a statement. “Today, I am stepping aside, and I am doing it for exactly the same reason that led me to get in: we must defeat Susan Collins, and the Democratic Party must be unified to do it.”
Support for Jackson among winning delegates Saturday and Sunday prompted other candidates to suspend their bids. They exit the race ahead of the July 25 nominating convention in Bangor, where 601 delegates will pick a nominee to face Collins in November. Candidates still have until the end of the day Monday to turn in the 500 signatures required to stand as candidates at the convention.
Bellows, Shah and Kleban entered the Senate race in the chaotic aftermath of former nominee Graham Platner’s exit following a Politico report detailing an ex-girlfriend’s rape allegation. Bellows and Shah entered alongside another candidate — Jackson — who lost the June gubernatorial primary to former House Speaker Hannah Pingree.
Shah, who became a household name leading Maine through the COVID-19 pandemic, entered both the gubernatorial and Senate races with strong name recognition. Shah worked in town halls and a debate last week to tout his stances that aligned with Platner, who fired up progressives.
But Shah failed to gain as much traction in the Democratic Party’s delegation voting process, which is poised to likely nominate Jackson in a 600-member convention in Bangor on Saturday.
Shah called for unity and immediately endorsed Jackson as he announced the suspension.
“Susan Collins, Donald Trump, and Senate Republicans are banking on disunity and frustration from Maine Democrats to try and win this seat, and we are not going to give them that,” he said. “Maine Democrats are united, angry, and energized.”
Bellows lost by nearly 40 points as a sacrificial candidate against U.S. Sen. Susan Collins in 2014, when the five-term Republican incumbent was broadly unpopular. Bellows’ pivot to the Senate race along with her record fighting the Trump administration over voter data and her move to kick him off Maine’s 2024 primary ballot, which was overturned by the Supreme Court.
“Donald Trump’s attacks on our democracy are only accelerating, and the best way that I can serve our state and country at this moment is by focusing exclusively on my role as Secretary of State,” she said in a statement.
Her run was marked by a poor Thursday debate performance. Bellows had been an even-keeled debater during the gubernatorial primary, but she put in a poor performance at the News Center Maine debate, replete with halting and robotic answers.
She fumbled facts in an exchange over Collins’ record on Venezuela, blaming the misstep on the compressed timeline of a hastily launched Senate campaign and a recent vacation. In a fundraising email that was criticized by Republicans and Democrats, she linked her performance to an immigration agent’s fatal shooting of a Biddeford man.
“What I do know is that when I need to know the facts, I will,” she said during the debate. “I’ll do my homework, and I won’t speak on something before I know what I want to say.”
Bellows also clearly struggled to keep pace with Jackson’s delegate operation once county caucuses began Saturday. Jackson, the former Maine Senate president and another former gubernatorial candidate, won at least 290 of the 319 delegates awarded across Saturday’s eight counties, a 91% share built on a delegate slate with little overlap with his rivals.
Bellows’ own slate overlapped heavily with those of Shah and Wood, splitting the anti-Jackson vote among candidates competing for the same pool of activists rather than distinct ones.
Kleban reentered the Senate race earlier this month, after previously dropping out in October when Gov. Janet Mills announced her candidacy. Mills later dropped out after poor polling against Platner.
“I ran for the Senate because Susan Collins has stopped doing what’s right. For nearly 30 years, she has enabled a system that is rigged against hardworking Mainers,” Kleban said when announcing his campaign’s end. “We deserve a senator who fights for us, not one who enables Trump at every turn and does the bidding of her billionaire backers.”
Kleban called the decision bittersweet, and that he would do whatever he could to support Jackson against Collins.
In announcing he was bowing out, Wood threw his support behind Jackson, calling the man from Allagash a friend.
“This fight is bigger than any one person,” he said late Sunday night.