Troy Jackson wins Maine’s student mock election
Maine Students Forecast 2026 Election Winners in State‑wide Mock Voting
More than 12,000 students from 115 schools cast ballots that echoed the state's real‑world political leanings, with Democrats leading in the Senate and Governor contests.
The Maine Department of the Secretary of State held a statewide mock election on Tuesday, giving elementary, middle and high school students the chance to vote for the 2026 U.S. Senate and Governor candidates. The results mirrored the political currents that many expect to play out on Election Day, with the Democratic nominees topping the polls in both statewide races.
In the Senate mock election, Democratic nominee Troy Jackson edged Republican Senator Susan Collins by nearly six percentage points. For governor, Democrat Hannah Pingree captured 41.8 percent of the student vote, ahead of Republican Bobby Charles at 30.4 percent and independent candidate Rick Bennet close behind with 24.4 percent. The congressional mock votes also reflected a clear partisan split: in the northern 2nd Congressional District, students favored former governor Paul LePage, the Republican nominee, by about ten points over Democrat Matt Dunlap; in the southern 1st District, Democratic incumbent Chellie Pingree won with 57.5 percent, while Republican Ronald Russell garnered 39.7 percent.
The mock election is a biennial event organized by the Secretary of State’s office to give students a practical introduction to voting. Over the years it has been noted for its predictive power; Maine students have chosen the winner in every presidential election since 2008, though they diverged in 2020 by selecting Democrat Sara Gideon over Collins.
“This is a great way for students to get introduced to the idea of voting, and to recognize that it’s pretty easy, that it doesn’t take a lot of time, that it’s not terribly complicated,” Secretary of State Shenna Bellows told reporters in the lobby of Maranacook Community High School in Readfield, where she visited to meet the students as they cast their ballots. “It demystifies voting for young people, so they’re more likely to vote in the future.”
Bellows’s remarks came as more than 12,000 students participated for the first time in a statewide mock election that also included referendum questions. In last year’s mock referendum, students correctly predicted the passage of a red‑flag law and the failure of a proposed voter‑ID measure—two issues that will appear on the 2026 ballot.
“I’ve seen turnout among my peers really strong,” said Isabelle Gannett, a senior at Manchester who helped run the school’s polling station. Gannett’s experience echoes a broader trend: Maine has consistently ranked among the highest in the country for youth voter participation, a fact highlighted by the state’s record turnout in the 2022 midterms.
The mock election process itself is straightforward. Students receive ballots that mirror the real ballots on the 2026 ballot, and they place them in sealed boxes under the watchful eye of school staff. The results are then tallied and released to the public by the Secretary of State’s office.
While the mock results cannot predict the final election with certainty, they offer a snapshot of how young voters are aligning politically. The fact that students favored Democrats in both statewide contests suggests a continuing trend in Maine’s political landscape, where the electorate has shown an increasing openness to Democratic candidates in recent years.
For the 2026 election, the real ballots will be cast at the same time as the statewide referendum questions. Observers will be watching to see whether the students’ predictions hold up under the weight of adult voters and the broader electorate.
As Maine’s student body prepares to head to the polls, the mock election serves as both a civic education exercise and a barometer of the state’s political mood. The Secretary of State’s office plans to continue the tradition, hoping that early exposure to voting will translate into higher turnout among young voters in the years ahead.
