Pingree Leads Fundraising With $4.2 Million After Final Debate
A Republican-backed PAC created to support Bobby Charles has instead spent $70,000 boosting independent Rick Bennett.
· 1 min read
The three candidates running to succeed Gov. Janet Mills met on Oct. 15 for their fourth and final debate, hosted by WMTW, with no major clashes and Democrat Hannah Pingree still holding a double-digit polling lead, according to The Portland Press Herald.
Pingree, 49, a former Maine House speaker from North Haven who ran Mills' policy office, has raised more than $4.2 million, the Press Herald reported. Republican Bobby Charles, 66, a Leeds lawyer and former federal drug and domestic policy official under three Republican presidents, has raised more than $1.8 million. Independent Rick Bennett, 63, a former state senator from Oxford and former chair of the Maine Republican Party, has raised about $923,000.
Charles said in July that Republican governors planned to back him with "likely millions," but that national money has not arrived with fewer than three weeks left before the Nov. 3 election. A political action committee formed over the summer with Republican donors to support Charles has instead spent $70,000 backing Bennett.
Pingree used the debate to call Bennett "a lifelong Republican," citing his tenure as state party chair from 2013 to 2017. Bennett said he was the Senate's most independent member.
This story was first reported by The Portland Press Herald.
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