Democratic gubernatorial candidate Nirav Shah voted in Georgia in the 2024 election, although he insists he meets Maine’s residency requirement to qualify for the Blaine House.
The former head of the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention quickly became a household name after arriving in 2019 and later leading the state’s pandemic response. He has parlayed that into a top position among the five Democrats running to replace Gov. Janet Mills since declaring his first-ever run for elected office in October.
If he is elected, the Wisconsin native would have less time in Maine than anyone elected governor in the modern era. He was based in Atlanta for nearly two years as the No. 2 official at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, where he voted using his Atlanta rental as his address, according to records obtained by the Bangor Daily News.
The Maine Constitution requires a governor to be a resident of the state for at least five years total when they take office. After being questioned on the topic at a Monday event in Rockland, he expressed confidence that he would meet the requirement.
“There is no scenario under which I do not meet the residency,” he said.
Shah’s campaign said his total time in Maine will be more than 7 1/2 years by early January 2027, when the next governor will be inaugurated. He would meet the state’s requirement by at least eight months if his nearly two years working in Atlanta were excluded.
Starting in March 2023, when he became deputy director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, Shah rented a furnished apartment on a short-term lease while maintaining his home in Brunswick, which he purchased with his wife in 2019.
While his duties as the CDC’s No. 2 required him to be in person in Atlanta, he came back to Maine frequently, kept a vehicle in Brunswick and even kept an active gym membership here, according to the campaign. The residency issue had not come up in events before Monday, Shah campaign manager Kayla vanWieringen said.
He voted early in-person in Georgia in the 2024 general election. He registered in Georgia in October 2024 using his Atlanta address and later canceled his registration in the state.
Shah left the CDC early in the second Trump administration before accepting a role last March at Colby College. He teaches courses on public health, epidemics and crisis communication while helping the Waterville college develop its public health program.
The campaign says he was back in Maine by last February, when he again registered to vote. Since 2019, he has made improvements to his Maine home and paid property taxes. He first registered to vote in Maine in 2020, and voted in the state’s 2020 and 2022 primaries and general elections.
Secretary of State Shenna Bellows, whose agency is responsible for conducting Maine elections, is also one of the Democrats seeking to replace Mills. Those looking to challenge the nominating petitions for primary candidates had to do so by Monday, and nobody filed in either party’s gubernatorial nominating races.
Other Democratic primary contenders include former state Senate President Troy Jackson, former state House Speaker Hannah Pingree, and Angus King III, son of the independent senator. Mills is term-limited and waging a primary campaign for the U.S. Senate against Sullivan oysterman Graham Platner and 2024 Democratic nominee David Costello.
The winner is poised to face five-term Republican Sen. Susan Collins, who helped set a precedent on residency when she ran for governor in 1994.
After she locked down the Republican nod, an activist challenged her Maine residency in court based on time she spent temporarily living and working in Massachusetts while maintaining a home in Standish. But a judge shot it down that July and the Maine Supreme Judicial Court affirmed it in September, noting the residency requirement was designed to be cumulative.
“It’s no surprise that some are trying to make this an issue as Dr. Shah continues to lead this race,” vanWieringen said in a statement.
