Blaine House candidate to vie for Senate instead

Independent gubernatorial candidate Nancy Oden on Friday said she is abandoning her Blaine House bid to run instead for state Senate.

Oden of Jonesboro was the first to enter the governor’s race about a year ago. On Friday she said a Senate campaign would allow her to focus more closely on issues affecting Washington County.

“This was never about me running for governor. It’s about good politics and getting the issues out there,” said the environmental activist, who counted a proposed construction debris dump and liquefied natural gas terminal among her chief concerns for the area. “I can best do that from home.”

Oden was one of 16 candidates – including eight independents – vying for the job as Maine’s chief executive.

Now, she said she plans to run as an independent for Maine Senate District 29, a seat currently held by Republican Kevin Raye of Perry.

Democrat Thomas Finlay of East Machias and independent Dana Kadey of Princeton are also running for the seat.

Oden has until June 1 to collect at least 200 signatures from voters in her Senate district to place her name on the November ballot. She also plans on using Maine Clean Election funds to run her campaign, she said.

Qualifying for the public money will require her to collect 150 donations of $5 each from within her district.

As a gubernatorial candidate, Oden would have needed 4,000 signatures to appear on the ballot and 2,500 donations for public financing. Oden in January dropped that bid for public money, instead opting to run a privately funded campaign.

Besides her desire to focus on local issues, Oden also counted among her reasons for leaving the governor”s race the large number of candidates in the field and the difficulty she had spreading her campaign message – particularly through the mainstream media, which she said ignores lesser-known candidates.

“I found it very frustrating,” she said.

Oden said she”s throwing her support in the gubernatorial race behind Democrat Christopher Miller of Gray.