Pingree won Maine’s open governor’s seat, returning to the State House she once helped lead as one of the youngest House speakers in state history.
Hannah Pingree, 50, first won a seat in the Maine House in 2002, at 25. By 2008 she was speaker of the House — the second woman to hold the job in Maine — before term limits ended her legislative run in 2010. Politics is also the family trade: her mother, Chellie Pingree, represents Maine in the U.S. House.
Most recently she ran the Governor’s Office of Policy Innovation and the Future under Gov. Janet Mills, working on climate, housing and the opioid crisis — a long apprenticeship for the job she now takes over herself.
She succeeds a fellow Democrat but inherits Maine’s hardest problems: high housing and energy costs and a rural health-care system under strain. Watch how a policy specialist handles the rough politics of paying for it all.
Fast facts
- Age: 50
- Party: Democratic
- Office: Governor of Maine
- State: Maine
- Previous job: Director of the Governor’s Office of Policy Innovation and the Future (2019–2025)
- Called by AP: just after 11:30 p.m. ET, Nov. 3
Part of the Zark News Election 2026 winners profile series. Winners are listed as called by the Associated Press.
