Nirav Shah is considering a run to become Maine’s next governor.
The former director of the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention told the Portland Press Herald on Friday that he was considering a bid for the Democratic nomination for governor.
While he isn’t committed to running, Shah didn’t elaborate on a timeline for a decision, the Press Herald reported.
Mainers will vote to replace Gov. Janet Mills, who is barred from seeking reelection under the state’s term limits law, in November 2026.
Shah quickly became a household name across Maine during the COVID-19 pandemic, with his daily COVID briefings becoming must-watch TV by Mainers anxious to learn the latest developments about the novel virus and its spread.
His memorable analogies, penchant for quoting the British rock band Coldplay, love for Diet Coke and exhortations for Mainers to care for each other generated a devoted fan base not common for public health officials. Mainers created Facebook pages devoted to Shah and T-shirts and other memorabilia emblazoned with the phrase “In Shah We Trust.”
Shah was named the Maine Caregiver of the Year and awarded an honorary degree from Colby in 2022, and he even teased a future run for political office that year, though he maintained he was committed to his role as director of the Maine CDC.
The end of his daily TV briefings in June 2021 marked for some a symbolic step in Maine’s fight against COVID.
In 2023, he announced he would be leaving Maine to join the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as its principal deputy director, a role he assumed in March of that year. U.S. Sen. Angus King even floated recommending Shah to lead the CDC in May 2023 when then-Director Rochelle Walensky stepped down.
Shah left the CDC in February, and he is set to begin teaching at Colby College in the fall. At the Waterville college, Shah will join the department of statistics, where he will teach courses on crisis communication, public health, and epidemics and outbreaks. He also will help Colby develop its public health program.
Shah, who has medical and law degrees from the University of Chicago, came to the Maine CDC after four years of running the Illinois Department of Public Health. Earlier in his career, he worked for the Cambodian Ministry of Health, doing work that included managing disease outbreaks.
He left the Illinois job amid controversy about his handling of a Legionnaires’ disease outbreak — a bacterial infection that causes pneumonia — that sickened 74 people and killed a dozen at a state veterans home. His office did not notify families or the public about the initial outbreak for six days and later declined to cite the facility for a safety violation. The state’s two U.S. senators called for his resignation in late 2018.
