By Michael Shepherd - Sept. 7, 2023
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It's a big year for mayoral races across Maine's biggest cities. Mayors in Maine generally have limited power and low profiles outside their cities, but these seats have still been jumping-off points for big political names from former Gov. Paul LePage to infamous prohibitionist Neal Dow.

The November election is bringing a large amount of upheaval to these positions at a crucial time for cities with prominent politicians on the ballot. Cities were challenged to keep providing services during the worst of the COVID-19 pandemic, and they are now struggling with intertwined housing affordability and homelessness crises.

Those are among the problems in Portland, the state's largest city that is also coping with a large influx of African asylum seekers. Mayor Kate Snyder declined to run for a second term this year, which will make her the third-straight mayor to not be reelected. The liberal bastion has struggled with tension between progressives and the business community, and it voted down a bid to make the mayor's role stronger last year.

That has not dampened interest as much as you may think. There are five candidates on the ballot in City Councilors Andrew Zarro, Mark Dion and Pious Ali, as well as former Councilor Justin Costa and political newcomer Dylan Pugh. Ali has been on the progressive side of Portland's left-tilted spectrum, while Dion is more to the centrist side. The other councilors are in between, making this ranked-choice contest an interesting experiment.

But the mayoral stakes may be highest in Auburn, where Mayor Jason Levesque, a Republican in a nonpartisan office, has gotten national attention for an aggressive housing agenda and is teasing a run for governor as soon as 2026. Until then, he is gunning for a fourth term and has his hands full.

His opponent is Democrat Jeff Harmon, the former deputy chief of the Maine State Police. He has organized against Levesque's effort to develop an area close to Lake Auburn, the water supply for Lewiston and its twin city. Given Levesque's higher ambitions, this is a contest worth watching outside the city.

Across the Androscoggin River, Lewiston probably has the state's most perennially interesting politics. This year, Mayor Carl Sheline is defending his seat against three challengers, including former Republican state Rep. Jon Connor and former Councilor Luke Jensen.

This will not be the kind of all-consuming fight that we saw between Lewiston conservatives and progressive activist Ben Chin, who lost high-dollar contests in 2015 and 2017. The crowded field could still lead to a December runoff, and those races always gain a little more attention.

In Biddeford, two well-known figures, former state Sen. Susan Deschambault and former Rep. Marty Grohman are vying to replace Mayor Alan Casavant, who has held the position for a whopping 12 years. Deschambault is a Democrat, while Grohman is a former Democrat who ran an independent bid for Maine's 1st District in 2018 with lots of Republican support.

These races may not matter to you, but political watchers ignore them at their peril. Even mayoral losers can come out OK in the end. In 1951, a politician from Waterville lost his race. Four years later, Edmund S. Muskie was the governor of Maine and went on to a legendary career in the U.S. Senate.