Trump, Biden win party primaries in Maine amid low voter turnout

President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump won their respective party primaries in Maine on Tuesday, according to unofficial results.

Maine was among more than a dozen states participating in Super Tuesday, which is the single-largest primary and caucus day of the 2024 presidential elections. The Associated Press called the Democratic contest for Biden and the Republican primary for Trump about half an hour after polls closed at 8 p.m.

Election results were just beginning to be reported by towns across the state but both Trump and Biden had commanding leads over their opponents with less than 10% of the vote counted.

Local and state election officials reported relatively low turnout in Maine compared to years with more competitive contests for the major-party nominations.

“Mainers should be very proud — it was another free, safe and secure election,” Secretary of State Shenna Bellows, a Democrat, said shortly after the polls closed. “Turnout was very low. We’ll get the numbers later this evening … We started the day in Yarmouth at 6 a.m., closing out the evening in Bangor. And everywhere that we went, turnout was pretty calm.”

The only remaining GOP challenger to Trump, former United Nations ambassador and South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, had only won one primary or caucus — in Washington, D.C. over the weekend — headed into Super Tuesday. Haley had pledged to stay in the race until at least Super Tuesday.

The other three Republicans whose names appeared on Maine’s primary ballot — Ron DeSantis, Vivek Ramaswamy and Ryan Binkley — had already withdrawn from the race.

The only opponent to Biden on Maine’s Democratic ballot was Minnesota Congressman Dean Phillips, who has not made any major headway against the incumbent during the primary season.

This was the first year that Maine began using a “semi-open primary” system for the presidential nominating contest. In a semi-open primary, unenrolled or independent voters can cast a ballot in one primary without having to join the party.

Early indications were that relatively few unenrolled or independent voters opted to avail themselves of the new rules.

According to data from the secretary of state’s office, roughly 36,000 voters requested absentee ballots headed into Tuesday, which is a tiny percentage of the more than 900,000 active voters in the state. Unenrolled voters accounted for roughly 5,100 of those requests for absentee ballots.

Maine’s primary contest drew relatively little attention from candidates in either party. Haley was the only major candidate to campaign in the state, holding a rally in Portland on Sunday that drew about 500 people. During that event, Haley portrayed herself as the better candidate to defeat Biden in November.

There were 20 Republican delegates from Maine at stake on Tuesday and 32 Democratic delegates.

This story will be updated.