Unenrolled candidates are on the rise in Maine. So are questions about their party ties.

When Maine Rep. Sharon Frost was knocking doors as part of her re-election campaign, she said she frequently heard voters say, “‘I’ll vote for you because you’re independent, I’m sick of both parties.’”

Frost is the only incumbent independent running for Maine Legislature, but across the state, there are 25 more unenrolled candidates — 19 vying for the Maine House of Representatives and seven for Maine Senate. That is the highest number of independent candidates running in a decade, according to previous years’ of election data. 

Last session there were only four independents serving in the Legislature, three state representatives and Sen. Rick Bennett, who unenrolled from the Republican Party in 2025 before he announced his bid for governor.

In a state where almost a third of voters were unenrolled as of November 2024, the number of independent candidates may sway control of Augusta, which the Democrats have held for eight years. 

Maine Morning Star spoke with almost a dozen legislative incumbents, former lawmakers, political science experts and others about the influx of independent candidates, their alliance with either party and the history of independence among their constituencies. 

“I think Maine is a state that really values individualism and being an independent —a true independent — and I think we have a long history of respecting people as well as politicians who do that,” said Shanna Cox, a Democrat running against an independent candidate in Lewiston.

“But,” she added, “I think doing it as a strategy to shoehorn conservative ideology into a left-leaning district or vice versa, liberal ideology into a right-leaning district … it’s been in the playbook for a long time.” 

Another reason several unenrolled candidates cited for running as independents is the increasing polarization among both parties, and voters’ desires to distance themselves from it. But despite the message they’re campaigning on, not all independents are truly unaffiliated. 

“I’m encouraged by people who are truly independent, but I’m discouraged by people who are just you know shedding the label of the parties to run,” Frost said. “I would like to see more actual independence.” 

Influx of independents 

According to a Maine Morning Star analysis of the past 10 years of election results, more independents are running in this election than any other in the past decade. The next closest was in 2018, when 24 independents ran. Every other election, fewer than 20 unenrolled candidates have run. Rob Glover, a political science professor at the University of Maine, said in his 16 years teaching politics, he has not observed this many independent candidates vying for state office in one year. 

“Seems to be more people who were very, very recently Republicans and are continuing to be supported by Republican donors and the Republican organizing apparatus running as independents,” he said.

Outside groups spending millions to oust state lawmakers up for reelection

President Donald Trump’s low approval rating might be driving Republicans to leave the party and run unenrolled.  

“Midterm elections are often kind of a referendum on who’s held power and how things are going, and right now things are pretty challenging,” Glover said.

If enough independents win, it may actually shift the power dynamics in Augusta. “You could imagine a situation whereby if you have legitimate independents who are not affiliated with a party, that they kind of use that leverage and it deprives one side or the other of a majority,” Glover said. “They kind of become their own independent caucus and can work with both sides and encourage compromise, but that presupposes that they are in fact legitimate independents.”

Despite the lack of party ties, state parties and outside groups — which do not coordinate with campaigns or have to disclose their donors — are actively supporting some of the independent candidates based on their previous affiliations or positions. 

Frost, who caucuses with Democrats, has received $32,000 from left-leaning groups, according to data from the Maine Ethics Commission website, as of Thursday.

Her race is the second most expensive of the 151 Maine House districts this year,  despite representing fewer than 10,000 people in the Belgrade area. She is facing off against Republican Dexter “Buzz” Bridges for a swing seat that over the last decade has been held by both Republicans and Democrats.

Bridges, who did not respond to requests for comment, has been backed by almost $60,000 in spending by outside groups.

“I wish that that money would have gone to other things,” Frost said. Instead, she said a lot of the opposition’s spending has been directed to negative ads and flyers against her.

While Frost’s race is against a Republican, the majority of independent candidates — 16 of 26 — are challenging Democrats this election cycle, many of whom are incumbents in reliably Democratic districts. 

 Southern Maine independents challenging Democrats

Three of these races are in York County, where incumbent Sen. Henry Ingwersen, along with Reps. Marc Malon of Biddeford and Traci Gere of Kennebunkport, are all running against independents.

Malon said while their challengers are all unenrolled, they represent an array of views. His opponent, Marc Lessard, is a moderate city councilor, based on his responses at a candidate forum hosted by the Biddeford Buzz. He also has a record of supporting some Democrat-led initiatives, such as a local ordinance prohibiting city cooperation with federal immigration agents, which Malon pointed to as an issue on which they agree. 

Lessard did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

“In my race the choice is between someone who holds Democratic values, which is me, or someone who is more conservative and is also kind of a lone wolf and I would not think would be particularly effective,” Malon said.

But Ingwersen’s opponent, Jason Litalien, is being accused of hiding his partisanship. . Malon said he’d argue Litalien is an example of “Republicans masquerading as independents, no matter what they might say on the record.”

Litalien told Maine Morning Star local Democrats were attempting to bad-mouth him, adding that he has voted for “independents, Democrats, and Republicans at all levels of government.”

He said if elected, he would not caucus with either party. 

On his campaign website, social media and in his responses to Maine Morning Star, he appears to hold many typically Republican positions, including a desire to audit the Maine health department, opposing transgender athletes’ rights to play on teams aligning with their gender identity and opposing syringe service programs.

In an email to Maine Morning Star, he said the harm reduction policy of allowing intravenous drug users to exchange old syringes for 100 clean ones goes against common sense.

”Not only is it counterintuitive to give someone using a needle to kill themselves 100 more chances to do so,” he wrote, “but it also ignores the working Mainers that are having to pay for their needles just to survive and go to work to pay taxes to provide drug users with free needles.”

He also criticized Ingwersen’s attendance at a local protest opposing federal immigration enforcement in Maine following the fatal shooting of Biddeford resident Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero. He said, “Henry ran to Mechanic’s Park to protest without any facts or evidence to support his claims, but when the (the Department of Health and Human Services’) website shows child fatalities he ignores them,” referring to legislative oversight of child protective services. 

Ingwersen is running under the Maine Clean Elections Act and receives no outside spending.  According to campaign finance disclosures, Litalien has received $24,000 from conservative-leaning PACs.

Litalien said he disagrees with some of the rhetoric and negative content of the mailers paid for by Common Sense for Maine, which has backed several Republican legislative candidates this election cycle. But, he noted that candidates are not allowed to coordinate with PACs, “so I have absolutely no control over what their free speech produces and I have no idea what they are planning on sending out.”

Ingwersen, who first served in the House and has been in the Senate since 2022, said the reason several independents are backed by conservatives in the Biddeford area might be strategic. 

“If they remove the Republican label and run the candidate as unenrolled or independent, they’re hoping to gain votes and run candidates whose views are just as conservative or extreme as it would be if they were Republicans,” he said. “But if candidates are going to declare themselves as unenrolled, they also need to be independent from any influence from either party.”

Lewiston race heats up 

A similar race is unfolding in Lewiston, where Cox, who’s running against independent Eryn Soule to replace outgoing Democratic Sen. Peggy Rotundo, has noticed a recent uptick in negative ads against her.

Cox, who stepped down as head of the regional Chamber of Commerce to run for office, said voters consider her a moderate and that she plans to work across the aisle. She said she doesn’t often discuss her opponent on the campaign trail, but will clarify for voters that Soule recently unenrolled from the Republican Party. 

“I think the thing that I hear most commonly is folks saying, ‘I don’t know if she’s actually independent. I only ever see her yard signs with other Republicans,’” Cox added. “I think that is one of the most visible ways that people identify ideology alignment, if not registered party alignment.” 

Soule admitted that she’s been a Republican for years, and only recently unenrolled to run for state office because it wasn’t a consideration as a nonpartisan Lewiston city councilor. She described herself as fiscally conservative, highlighting her vote several years ago in favor of a low-barrier shelter in Lewiston, but said she was opposed to the city funding it.  

She said her motivation for leaving her party was not to distance herself from President Donald Trump’s administration, though she did vote for him, nor was it a campaign ploy.

“I’ve lived here for long enough to know that Republicans are not well loved here in Lewiston … but that is not why I unenrolled,” she said. 

Soule has not determined whether she will caucus with Republicans, though said the party has reached out while she said she’s been “blacklisted” by the Democratic Party.

“I think the parties worked while they worked, and they clearly are no longer working,” she said. “When people won’t even speak together or work together, that’s not good for Maine.”

Soule, like Litalien, is backed by Common Sense for Maine, but Democrat-leaning PACs including the Maine Democratic State Committee have spent more than $11,000 to oppose her. 

While left-leaning political action committees have also spent more than $23,000 to support Cox, she said, “none of my ads that I’ve personally authorized or that have come from my campaign or that I’ve approved have been negative, or have mentioned my opponent.”

“I think you’ll find that that’s not true in reverse,” she added. 

Focus on local issues in Lincoln County 

In House District 45, both Republican Becky Stephens and independent Clinton Collamore disavowed the influence of national politics on local elections, saying they are focused on what their Waldoboro-area constituents need from their representatives.

“National politics seems to seep into some of these local races, in my opinion, in a really strange way,” Stephens said. 

“We’re worried about the rhetoric about what’s happening nationally … instead of just focusing on the people that live in the districts.” 

Stephens has been a Republican her whole life, but told Maine Morning Star she isn’t afraid to disagree with her party if it benefits her constituents. 

Three conservative PACs have spent more than $32,000 to support Stephens in the race, but the only flyer she has sent out was to invite voters to an event where she served ice cream sundaes and talked about local issues such as high electric and heating bills.

But the outside groups sending out flyers on her behalf, one of which opposed Collamore, used her full first name, which she does not go by. 

“Which would let you know why these mailers didn’t come from me because they all say Rebecca on them, and all my stuff says Becky,” she said. “They obviously didn’t check out my website beckyformaine.com,because they just looked at what registration looked like I guess.”

Collamore is a former Democratic state representative who resigned after being charged with campaign violations and is now running as an independent. He said he unenrolled from the party soon after he left the Legislature in 2023.

“I just kind of think that it’s a group of people that’s overlooked, and it might be the independents that can maybe bring people together,” he said.

“People don’t want petty bickering, they want issues resolved.”

Like Stephens, he said he’s running to focus on problems his local constituents have told him about. 

“This isn’t Washington D.C., that’s where you expect it,” he added. “For me, it’s local. These races will come and go but after this is over, all of us here still have to live together in this community.”

GET THE MORNING HEADLINES.

SUBSCRIBE

Check the map below to see who is running for Maine Legislature in your district.

YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE.

SUPPORT