Voters mark their ballots at the Sanford High School gymnasium on Tuesday. Photo: Gail Burnett
Marc Boisse will be the Republican nominee for state house District 141 after besting Clinton “Wes” Phinney by a healthy margin in Tuesday’s primary voting. The district includes most of Springvale, part of Sanford, and the towns of Shapleigh and Newfield. While Newfield’s election results were not available as of press time, among Sanford/Springvale and Shapleigh voters, Boisse had 60% of the vote to Phinney’s 40%.
Boisse will face Democrat Rebecca Flood-Andrews and unenrolled candidate David Mongeau in the general election on Nov. 3. The District 141 Republican race was the only contested primary on Sanford/Springvale voters’ ballots for legislative or York County seats; all others ran unopposed.
In the school budget validation referendum, Sanford and Springvale voters gave a solid “thumbs up” to the budget by a more than 2-to-1 margin, with 69% in favor of adoption and 31% opposed.
In the statewide primary for governor, the will of Sanford voters reflected the state as a whole, with a plurality of those choosing a Democratic ballot ranking Nirav Shah first, and those voting on the Republican ballot ranking Bobby Charles first. Since neither candidate achieved more than 50% of the votes cast, the ranked choice system will be used for both parties. Under ranked choice, the last place finisher is eliminated and their voters’ second choices tallied until a candidate crosses the 50% threshold.
In the Republican primary to face U.S. Rep. Chellie Pingree, who ran unopposed, Sanford voters also agreed with the rest of the state in giving Ron Russell a decisive victory over Joshua Pietrowicz.
The official tally records that 3,615 Sanford/Springvale voters participated in the election, which represents a 25% turnout. This is a significantly higher turnout than the last gubernatorial primary in 2022, when just over 13% of registered voters cast a ballot. Multiple factors may have contributed to the increase: This year we also had a primary for US Senate; four years ago both candidates for governor were running unopposed; and this was also the first election in which unenrolled voters could vote in either primary while maintaining their unenrolled status. Of all 2026 primary voters, 2,091 chose a Democratic ballot and 1,417 chose a Republican ballot.
A total of 2,577 ballots were cast in person on Tuesday, and 1,038 were absentee or early voters, a split of 71% to 29%. This is also an increase from four years ago, when 80% voted in person and 20% absentee/early.
The complete official tallies are available on the Sanford city website at https://www.sanfordmaine.org/departments/election___voter_information/election_results.php.
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