{"id":3910,"date":"2026-05-26T16:21:10","date_gmt":"2026-05-26T16:21:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/preprod.pressherald.com\/voter-guide\/?page_id=3910"},"modified":"2026-10-01T13:27:16","modified_gmt":"2026-10-01T13:27:16","slug":"about-the-guide","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/preprod.pressherald.com\/voter-guide\/about-the-guide\/","title":{"rendered":"About The Guide"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

About The Guide<\/h2>\n\n\n
\n\n\n\n

The Voter Guide is back, and it\u2019s more comprehensive than ever.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Beginning over the summer, we sent surveys to every candidate for state and federal office in Maine, including candidates for all 186 legislative races. For the first time, we also included most candidates for local office in Maine\u2019s biggest cities \u2014 even the ones we don\u2019t normally cover. (As always, if you are a candidate and you want to fill out our survey, get in touch<\/a> with us!)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We\u2019re also rolling out a new feature: Build your ballot. We want to give you a tool you can use to actively mull your voting decisions, complete with each candidate\u2019s biographical information and their answers to our survey questions \u2014 if they got back to us. While we weren\u2019t able to send our survey to every candidate for every office in the state, the guide includes information about more than 400 races.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While you use this tool, please note that your ballot may include more offices or questions than what we\u2019ve provided. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Putting this guide together involved dozens of reporters and editors, and hundreds of combined hours of outreach, combing through answers and logging responses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the spring, more than 20,000 readers read the guide. As we gear up for one of the biggest elections in Maine history, we hope you find this version even more useful.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Note: Local election surveys were primarily sent to contested candidates only. If you are an uncontested candidate, or a contested candidate who we missed and would like to participate, please email<\/em> election@metln.org<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Welcome to the 2026 Press Herald primary election voter guide.
This spring, we set out to survey hundreds of candidates across dozens of Maine elections on June 9.
Our effort was ambitious. We included candidates and referendums ranging from small towns to high-profile federal contests. We asked candidates biographical questions that will help voters get to know them, and we asked policy questions that will give you an idea about what they\u2019ll do in office.
The guide is not comprehensive. Not every local candidate is featured, nor every local referendum. We focused on the eight counties in our core coverage areas, but are hoping to expand statewide in November.\u00a0
Only the races with more than one formal candidate can be found here. This means we did not send the survey to write-in candidates. We also excluded some local races such as advisory boards so we could focus on high-level positions such as select board and school board.
Many candidates did not respond to our survey.This is a new service, so we get it. There\u2019s still time to submit.\u00a0\u00a0
If you are a candidate in a contested June 9 race and you\u2019d like to participate, please get in touch with us at\u00a0kwilson@metln.org<\/a>, and we will send you our questions. The higher the participation rate, the better.\u00a0Happy voting.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":43,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-3910","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/preprod.pressherald.com\/voter-guide\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3910","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/preprod.pressherald.com\/voter-guide\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/preprod.pressherald.com\/voter-guide\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preprod.pressherald.com\/voter-guide\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/43"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preprod.pressherald.com\/voter-guide\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3910"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/preprod.pressherald.com\/voter-guide\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3910\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/preprod.pressherald.com\/voter-guide\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3910"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}