Politics
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AUGUSTA, Maine — A New York City group will spend $175,000 against Democratic gubernatorial frontrunner Nirav Shah in an attempt to help an allied slate of candidates trying to overtake him in the final days of the June 9 primary.
The Brooklyn-based Working Families Party backed New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani in his successful 2025 mayoral run and Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Graham Platner. Mamdani and Platner share political advisers, and Platner announced last week that he was ranking the three candidates being boosted in the ad campaign.
The spending started with an ad targeting Shah, Maine’s former public health chief, over parts of his background and funding tied to his campaign. The group also launched a website boosting Secretary of State Shenna Bellows, Senate President Troy Jackson and former House Speaker Hannah Pingree and criticizing Shah and centrist rival Angus King III.
“In a crowded primary with a little over a week until Election Day, the Working Families Party announced an independent expenditure to invest in a combined digital, media and mail program to help cut through the noise so voters know which candidates will stand up to corporations, billionaires, and right-wing extremists,” spokesperson Madeline Stocker said.
The ad targeted Shah over his record as public health chief for the former Republican governor of Illinois, where the state’s two Democratic U.S. senators called for his resignation in 2018 over the state’s response to a deadly Legionnaires’ disease outbreak in a veterans’ home.
He did not make notifications to families or the public for six days after the outbreak was discovered, acknowledging communication errors at a debate this month and saying he learned from them ahead of his role as the state’s top public health communicator during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The ad also says Shah worked for a firm involved in “union busting” in a reference to his seven years at the Chicago law firm of Sidley Austin LLP. While he was a health care lawyer, the company advertised its services in helping companies defeat or prevent organizing efforts.
The Working Families Party seized on Shah’s support from a Democratic school-choice group that funded part of a $650,000 ad campaign from 314 Action Fund, a group that supports members of the party with science backgrounds. Shah has not advocated for school-choice policies and was ranked third by the Maine Education Association, a teachers union.
Shah has consistently led polls of the race to date, although Jackson was tied with him in the first round of a survey released by the University of New Hampshire this week. Other surveys have found the remaining candidates rotating in and out of the spots behind Shah.
The frontrunner has a limited public profile outside of public health. He was been more conservative than the allied Democrats on economic issues, including his opposition to a statewide rental registry. But he has opposed President Donald Trump’s increased immigration enforcement. On Friday, he laid out six proposed executive orders he would issue if elected.
Ranked-choice voting has led to debates at which the Democrats have been generally shy to attack each other. At a debate hosted by CBS News 13 and the Bangor Daily News early this month, he was the only candidate who named his own second choice in Pingree.
Shah’s campaign noted past praise from others in the race and called the ad “dishonest.”
“Mainers are tired of the same old political games, and Nirav offers something different and new. He is going to lower costs, make life more affordable, and take on Trump, and that is exactly why he is going to win this race,” campaign manager Kayla vanWieringen said.
