Maine Rep. Ed Crockett of Portland is running as an independent in the open race to replace outgoing Democratic Gov. Janet Mills in November 2026. (Photo courtesy of campaign)
Rep. Ed Crockett of Portland has entered the race for Maine’s next governor. And, he’s the second sitting legislator who has unaffiliated from a political party to run as an independent.
Crockett, who until recently had been a Democrat, announced his intention to run for higher office in an op-ed earlier this summer, in which he condemned what he described as a Legislature “stuck in a morass of partisanship.” Crockett is approaching his eighth and final year serving in the Maine House of Representatives before he’ll be termed out.
That critique echoes why Sen. Rick Bennett of Oxford, formerly a Republican, similarly said he decided to run as an independent for governor earlier this year
With Crockett in the running, there are now 17 candidates in the open race to replace Gov. Janet Mills, who terms out in 2026. Crockett is the third independent, along with Bennett and John Glowa, a retired environmental specialist.
Before assuming public office, Crocket had a decades-long career in sales and marketing, leading initiatives for Maine-based companies such as Country Kitchen, Hannaford and Oakhurst Dairy.
Crockett has said his world view was shaped by his childhood growing up on Munjoy Hill in Portland as the youngest of eight children in a family that struggled financially, which he detailed in his memoir released in 2021, “The Ghosts of Walter Crockett,” titled after his father.
Crockett is also the third Clean Elections candidate, fully funding his campaign with public money under Maine’s Clean Elections Act.
A bill this past session that sought to expand the fund failed, and the Maine Ethics Commission raised concern about allocations not being enough if more than two gubernatorial candidates run under the program in 2026. Bennett previously told Maine Morning Star that he chose not to run under clean elections because of fear that there wouldn’t be sufficient funding.
Crockett has been a vocal critic of how the state has set its budgets over the past several years, specifically Democrats choosing to pass majority budgets without Republican support. He has argued that that approach puts too much power in the hands of the chief executive while making most of the bipartisan work done in committees fruitless.
“Maine does not need more partisan fighting,” Crockett wrote on his campaign website. “It needs a governor who can bring people together and move us forward.”
Read about all of the candidates vying to be Maine’s next governor in our voter guide.