Summers, Pingree win in 1st District Victors to vie for U.S. House seat

Democrat Chellie Pingree and Republican Charles Summers claimed victory Tuesday night in their parties’ primary contests for Maine’s 1st Congressional District seat.

With 497 of 615 precincts reporting early Wednesday morning, Pingree had polled 19,440 votes, or 43.9 percent, on the Democratic side and Summers had tallied 16,162 votes, or 59.6 percent, on the Republican side.

Trailing Pingree was Adam Cote with 12,674 votes, or 28.6 percent, Michael Brennan with 4,923 votes, Ethan Strimling with 4,752, Mark Lawrence with 2,049 votes and Dr. Steve Meister with 465 votes.

Trailing Summers on the Republican ballot was C. Peter “Dean” Scontras with 10,994 votes, or 40.4 percent.

Reached at his campaign headquarters in downtown Portland late Tuesday, Summers credited his wife, Ruth, for his victory and commended Scontras for running a “very good and a very hard campaign.”

Until last month, Summers was serving with the Navy in Iraq while his wife was home running the campaign as her husband’s stand-in. Besides field work, Ruth Summers attended scores of campaign appearances on his behalf while he was overseas.

“It’s a fantastic night and it feels wonderful,” Summers said. “I would not be here having this conversation if not for my wife. I would not be in this position if not for her. When I was called to serve, we had a conversation and we decided to go forward. Ruth crisscrossed the district. She was everywhere, lining up volunteers, county chairs and fighting dollar for dollar. I really am blessed.”

Pingree said Tuesday night she was looking forward to her next challenge: Summers.

“I think there’s a huge difference between us, about ending the war, about bringing down energy prices, universal access to health care, doing something about the economy. This is a time when voters really want change, and I think they’ll see that in our campaign,” she said.

Pingree, 53, of North Haven pulled large margins from Cumberland County, where she captured 41 percent of the vote to Cote’s 24 percent; Knox County, with 82 percent to Cote’s 11 percent; Lincoln County, with 66 percent to his 20 percent; Kennebec County, with 40 percent to his 38 percent; and Sagadahoc County, with 57 percent to his 23 percent. Cote was winning his home base of York County by 45 percent to her 29 percent.

Summers also scored well across the district. He was leading Scontras in Cumberland County by 64 percent to 37 percent, in Lincoln County by 65 percent to 35 percent, in Sagadahoc County by 62 percent to 38 percent, in Knox County by 60 percent to 40 percent, in Kennebec County by 53 percent to 47 percent, and in York County by 52 percent to 48 percent.

Pingree had been considered the favorite in the race since she announced her candidacy last year. She operated businesses on North Haven for more than two decades, served eight years in the Maine Senate, mounted a hard-fought though unsuccessful run against Sen. Susan Collins in 2002 and most recently served as president and chief executive officer of the Washington, D.C., advocacy group Common Cause. As of the most recent reporting deadline, Pingree had raised more than $1.1 million for her campaign.

Newcomer Cote, 35, of Sanford has reported $465,000 in contributions, a number of which came from Republican donors. He was viewed by many as the most moderate candidate among the Democrats. He changed his registration from Democrat to Republican in 2000 to vote for presidential candidate John McCain and changed back last year shortly before filing his nomination papers.

Cote, a graduate of Colby College, is a lawyer with the Portland firm Pierce-Atwood and also serves as a staff judge advocate for the Maine Army National Guard. He spent a year serving with the Army in Iraq and was present in the mess hall during a suicide bomb attack that killed and wounded more than 100 soldiers.

Brennan, 55, a state senator from Portland, is a social worker and currently works as a policy associate at the Muskie School of Public Service, where he directs projects related to child welfare, mental health and public policy. He also is an adjunct faculty member at the University of New England.

Strimling, 40, is a state senator from Portland who gave up his seat to run for Congress. He is a native of New York City and attended the University of Maine. A strong advocate for liberal issues, Strimling has been involved with the Maine People’s Alliance and has served as executive director of Portland West for the past decade.

Lawrence, 49, of Kittery is district attorney for York County. The son of a Portsmouth Naval Shipyard worker, Lawrence worked his way through Bowdoin College and the University of Maine School of Law as a lobsterman and in local factories.

Meister, 53, of Portland, the only physician in the race, received his medical degree from Tufts University School of Medicine and has been a staff physician at Maine Medical Center since 1996. Before that, Meister served as a clinical professor at Georgetown University’s department of pediatrics in Washington, D.C., and as the head of pediatric care and director of child abuse evaluation at the Naval Medical Center in San Diego, Calif. He has published a number of papers and is a member of the American Academy of Pediatrics. Meister served with the U.S. Marines during the first Gulf War and directed an emergency room at a field hospital at the Kuwait border.

Summers, 48, had the advantage of being well-known in the district. He ran successfully for the Maine Senate when he captured a historically Democratic seat representing the Old Orchard-Saco area in the late 1980s and early 1990s. He has worked as an aide to Sen. Olympia Snowe and as New England regional administrator for the Small Business Administration. He has served in the Naval Reserve for the past 13 years.

Scontras, 38, an Eliot businessman, grew up in Kittery, where he starred on the local high school football team and played on a partial scholarship for the University of Maine team that contested the national championship. Scontras attended graduate school in Washington, D.C. He worked with various technical companies before moving back to Maine “for the quality of life” and rejoining his extended family in southern Maine.

Summers said he had a very warm phone conservation with Scontras on Tuesday night and that his rival had “very graciously offered” to give him his full support and that of his supporters. He said he planned to spend time catching his breath with his family for a few days before “getting right back out there and up on my horse.”

wgriffin@bangordailynews.net

338-9546

The Associated Press contributed to this report.