MAINE MORNING STAR: Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows Officially Announces Bid for Governor
MARCH 26, 2025 - During her address early Wednesday at the official launch event at the Hancock Community Center, Bellows said “we need leaders who will meet the moment.”
“Because while we’re paying our taxes or helping our parents measure out their medication, our country is being demolished by a greedy, unelected billionaire who thinks his dollars are more powerful than our voices…Who thinks the value of his stock portfolio matters more than the values of our community.”
Bellows has served as Maine’s first female secretary of state since 2021. She garnered national attention last year for initially disqualifying President Donald Trump from the 2024 Republican primary. She’s currently serving her third term as Secretary of State, during which she has focused on making voting more accessible.
“With so much at stake, we need a governor from Maine and for Maine — someone who understands what families here are going through, because they’ve lived it,” Bellow said in a statement.
“Growing up in Hancock,” she continued, “my family didn’t have much and we struggled to pay the bills, but we worked for everything we had. It’s that perspective that will allow me to fight for families, workers, small businesses and children every single day as governor.”
Bellows, who now lives in Manchester, has worked in Democratic politics in Maine for more than a decade. Bellows served in the Maine Senate from 2016 to 2020, representing 11 towns in southern Kennebec County. She also served as Senate chair of the Labor and Housing Committee and was on the Judiciary Committee. Before her tenure as a state legislator, she ran as the Democratic nominee against U.S. Sen. Susan Collins for U.S. Senate in 2014.
Before running against Collins, Bellows served as executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Maine. Throughout her career, she’s consulted for and worked with several advocacy organizations including Sierra Club’s Maine Chapter, Consumers for Affordable Healthcare and the Maine Women’s Lobby. She also worked on campaigns to pass marriage equality in Maine, and co-chaired a successful 2011 statewide ballot campaign to restore same-day voter registration.
As Secretary of State, her office has focused on modernizing technology, implementing online voter registration and automatic voter registration at the Bureau of Motor Vehicles, among other initiatives. In 2022, Maine had the highest voter participation in the nation, and the November 2024 election yet again saw record turnout.
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