Former Maine public health chief Nirav Shah got a massive boost Tuesday in a $650,000 ad campaign from a group aiming to help elect more Democrats with science backgrounds.
The new ad from 314 Action spotlights the gubernatorial candidate’s leadership of the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention during the COVID-19 pandemic. The ad obtained by the Bangor Daily News also includes a recurring theme among the five Democrats seeking to replace outgoing Gov. Janet Mills: standing up to President Donald Trump.
Shah’s allies are looking to shore up his frontrunner status in recent surveys with an ad campaign that exceeds his total spending on the air so far and roughly equals that of former House Speaker Hannah Pingree, who has advertised more than any of her rivals at $667,000. The late support could be a landmark event in the five-way primary.
“Shah is the clear frontrunner in this race and 314 Action is all-in to make sure he gets over the finish line in the June primary,” Joshua Morrow, the president of the group’s political arm, said in a statement.
Shah is emerging as the favorite in the race after leading in a handful of polls, including one from the University of New Hampshire in February and more recent ones that were paid for by 314 Action and the campaigns of Pingree and former state Senate President Troy Jackson. Pingree’s survey had her gaining on him in later rounds of voting.
The ad invokes Trump and touts Shah’s plans to lower healthcare costs and make prescription drugs more affordable. He became famous almost overnight during the early part of the pandemic while leading daily briefings. His communication style was praised early on, but the response to his work got more divided as pandemic policies became polarizing.
“When COVID hit Maine, fear spread across the state,” the ad says. “But Dr. Nirav Shah answered the call and told Mainers the truth.”
Shah also served as the deputy director for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention under President Joe Biden. He was previously public health director for a Republican governor in Illinois, where the state’s two U.S. senators called for his resignation in 2018 over the state’s response to a deadly Legionnaires’ disease outbreak in a veterans’ home.
At a debate hosted by CBS News 13 and the BDN earlier this month, he stood by his agency’s response at the veterans’ home but acknowledged mistakes in communicating the outbreak to families and the public. He did not make notifications for six days after the outbreak was discovered.
“That’s why when I got to Maine, you all saw what you saw during the pandemic,” he said. “No matter what was going on, every single day, hundreds of times I showed up to make sure Mainers knew what was going on. I was tested, and I learned a lesson, and I’m better for it.”
