The North Haven native could be the first islander to be elected Maine governor.
NORTH HAVEN — Long before becoming the Democratic nominee for Maine governor, Hannah Pingree was raised on this small, close-knit island in Penobscot Bay where community members come together to get things done.
Pingree was born in Belfast and her family moved to North Haven when she was a baby. The resident population then was 350 and has risen to 417 as of last count.
“I saw my parents involved — they were on the school board, running small businesses, both were EMTs — but that is what everyone else did as well,” Pingree told the Midcoast Villager in an interview after winning the hotly contested June 9 Democratic primary.
She played on sports teams — as nearly all students did, so the tiny school would have enough athletes to field teams. Pingree ran cross country and was a point guard for the island’s basketball team in high school. She was named a Courier-Gazette All-Star in her senior year.
Students from the island school attended town meetings each year.
“Even at a young age, I saw people asking, ‘How are we going to keep our school open? How are we going to build housing for people?’ Obviously, my mom was a big influence for me, running for the state Senate when I was 14 years old,” Pingree said. Chellie Pingree is now a U.S. congresswoman, though Hannah became speaker of the Maine House before her mother was sworn in to the U.S. House in Washington.
“But the biggest influence was just being in a little town where everyone cared about everybody else,” she said. “That’s what made me want to become involved in public service at a young age.”
When the younger Pingree was 13 or 14, she and her mother went to a Maine Women’s Lobby conference. They heard then-Rep. Pat Schroeder, a Democrat from Colorado, speak. That was after Anita Hill gave testimony before Congress for the nomination hearing of Clarence Thomas to the U.S. Supreme Court. Schroeder was instrumental in getting the congressional committee to allow Hill to testify. At that conference, another woman attendee approached the elder Pingree, said more women need to run for political office, and asked Chellie to run for the state Legislature.
At that time, Chellie Pingree was on the school board and running a small business, North Island Designs, which produced knitting kits and pattern books. The Republican candidate was Jack McCormick, a well-known businessman and Rockport town official.
“I knocked on a 1,000 doors for her. I was very involved in that campaign. It was an uphill battle but she worked very hard, and she won by a large amount,” the younger Pingree recalled.
That was in 1992. Her mother rose over four terms to be Maine Senate majority leader where, among other things, she took on the prescription drug industry, which lost a bid before the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn the Pingree-sponsored Maine Rx legislation.
“I saw that politics was a way to actually get things done and help people,” Hannah said.
After graduating from the North Haven school, the younger Pingree went to Brown University in Rhode Island and then worked for an internet company in New York. She returned to Maine in 2001 to help her mother in her campaign to unseat U.S. Sen. Susan Collins. Collins won reelection that year to a second six-year term and is on the ballot again this fall for a sixth term.
During that campaign, Maine Democratic party leader Michael Saxl contacted Hannah Pingree and encouraged her to run for the Maine House seat that represented North Haven, Vinalhaven and several Hancock County towns inluding Stonington and Deer Isle, Swans Island, and part of Mount Desert Island. Pingree said “no” more than once — but Saxl kept calling, citing the lack of young people and women in the Legislature.
“I did exactly what my Mom did — I knocked on thousands of doors,” she said.
Elected at 26, Hannah Pingree said she looked at ways to keep young people in Maine. Paper mills were shutting down, rural Maine was struggling and many towns were worrying about a vicious spiral where young people moved away to seek better opportunities, weakening the local economy, which would only encourage more people to move. Pingree got to work on issues that are still relevant today, such as housing, healthcare, and early climate action.
Hannah Pingree served on the important Appropriations Committee in her first two-year term in the Maine Legislature, chaired the Health and Human Services Committee in her second term, was elected Majority Leader in the third term, and in 2008, elected unanimously as Speaker of the Maine House — the youngest person in the country at that time to be speaker of a state legislative body. Pingree noted she got along with both sides of the political aisle, including with the then-Republican House Leader Joshua Tardy; they are still friends today.
“During that time, we passed bipartisan budgets. We passed bond packages working with Republicans. There were definitely issues that we did not agree with, but we kept it civil,” Pingree said. “I earned respect from Republicans by always listening to people.”
She noted that former Republican State Sen. Chris Rector of Thomaston is now a supporter of her for governor.
When term limits pushed Pingree out of the Legislature in 2010, she returned home to North Haven and she and her husband Jason raised their two children — Oscar and Elsie. She spent eight years on the island, running the family-owned Nebo Lodge and serving on the school board. She worked with her father on a housing organization for year-round residents.
In 2008, her mother won election to Congress to represent Maine’s First Congressional District in the U.S. House. She is now seeking her 10th term in November.
In 2018, when Democrat Janet Mills was elected governor, Mills tapped Hannah Pingree to be on her transition team. Gov. Mills then asked Pingree to help start and lead the Office of Policy Innovation and the Future which focused on such issues as housing, climate, opioids, and children’s issues. She served seven years in that post, before stepping down ahead of her run for governor this year.
She kicked off her campaign in Rockland in June 2025 with a speech at the Peasley Park housing project.
“I knew there was still a lot more to get done,” Pingree said about deciding to run for governor.
In a crowded, competitive field of five Democratic candidates, Pingree won the nomination at the conclusion of the ranked choice tabulations. She will now compete in the November election against Republican nominee Robert Charles of Leeds, and former Republican Party chair and current state Sen. Rick Bennett of Oxford, who is running as an unenrolled candidate.
Pingree said her goals will be both to be a strong governor to stand up against President Trump to protect reproductive rights and voting rights, but also a governor who will focus on affordability issues such as housing and healthcare.
“If we don’t have housing that people can afford, no young people can stay here, and nothing else works,” the Democratic candidate stated.
Rockland City Councilor and former Rockland Mayor Penelope York has known Pingree since they attended the North Haven school in their elementary years. Pingree was a couple of grades behind York.
With about 54 students in the entire school, all the students knew each other, York noted. They participated in Brownies and Girls Scouts together, visiting shut-ins and caroling. York recalls riding on the back of Pingree’s parents’ float for their farm during Fourth of July parades.
York moved to Rockland as a freshman in high school. The two women reconnected as adults and have formed a close friendship.
“Hannah has demonstrated the ability to bridge gaps with people. It’s pretty inherent to how we are as islanders. You can’t make it through tough times, storms, deaths, anything like this that affects communities unless everybody steps up,” York said.
She said Pingree is a masterful communicator. She has people who support her who have different perspectives on national politics, but who were eager to support her because she is honest and treats people with respect, York said.
“She really, truly knows you can’t sit down and have a close conversation with someone and be B.S.-ing them at the same time,” York said.
“I would walk on glass. I would do anything to support her,” she said. “We can cross the political divide and show other states how it can be done. But we need a leader in the seat of governor. We want leaders who will speak respectfully to others, even to those who oppose them.”
Dr. Nirav Shah, who finished second in the five-way race, endorsed Pingree after the results were announced.
“I called Hannah Pingree to congratulate her, and I want every Mainer to know that I could not have meant it more. She ran a campaign of deep conviction and real heart, and our state will be fortunate to have her carrying our banner into November. She has my whole-hearted support, my sincere admiration, and every ounce of help I am able to give between now and Election Day. Starting now, I will be working to make her the next governor of Maine,” Shah stated.
Former gubernatorial candidate Shenna Bellows also endorsed Pingree, saying she will make a great governor. Troy Jackson also offered Pingree his congratulations.
