AUGUSTA — Secretary of State Charlie Summers announced Thursday that voters in state Senate District 20 will go to the polls Feb. 14 to elect a new senator to complete the term of Sen. David Trahan, R-Waldoboro, whose resignation took effect at the end of 2011.
District 20 covers 22 towns, including Alna, Westport Island and Wiscasset.
The new senator’s term will expire later this year. The regularly scheduled biennial election in Senate District 20, and for all seats in Maine’s Senate and House of Representatives, is scheduled for Nov. 6.
Trahan announced in July 2011 that he’d accepted a job as executive director of the Sportsman’s Alliance of Maine, the state’s largest advocacy group for sportsmen.
According to state campaign filing records, House District 53 Rep. Les Fossel, R-Alna, has registered to run for the Senate 20 seat.
Campaign filing records also show that Somerville resident Christopher K. Johnson, a Democrat, has registered to run against Fossel for Trahan’s vacant seat.
A report in Village Soup on Wednesday indicates that District 50 Rep. Dana Dow, R-Waldoboro, also has plans to run for the Senate seat.
If Fossel and Dow both run for the seat, it will set up a rematch of one of the most closely contested primaries in Maine history.
After defeating Fossel in a June 2004 primary that resulted in a tie vote after a recount and wasn’t decided until the Maine Supreme Judicial Court awarded the nomination to Dow in early August of that year, he went on to win the 2004 general election and serve two terms as the senator from District 20.
When Dow chose not to seek re-election in 2008, Trahan, who had served in the House for eight years, successfully ran to succeed him.
County party entities have until Jan. 17 to file certificates of nomination to the secretary of state for placement on the special election ballot.
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