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Former state Rep. Denise Tepler of Topsham won a Democratic primary for an open Bath-area Maine Senate seat in Tuesday’s election, but her opponent said she would ask for a recount.
Tepler led former Sagadahoc County Register of Probate Jean Guzzetti of Bath by 48 votes, according to returns reported to the Bangor Daily News as of Wednesday. Two towns had not yet reported returns, but Guzzetti’s campaign said its results showed the candidate trailing Tepler by 22 votes.
“With the margins so close in many towns, we want to be absolutely certain that every vote is counted and every voice is heard,” Guzzetti said in a statement.
That tally would be well within the 1.5-percentage-point threshold established by state law that allows candidates to request a recount at the public’s expense. It would be one of the closer margins in recent years, although a Republican primary for a Maine House of Representatives seat from the Rangeley area was decided by just five votes after the 2022 election.
Tepler served four terms in the House, hitting term limits two years ago. She and Guzzetti were dueling for the nomination to succeed Senate Majority Leader Eloise Vitelli, D-Arrowsic, in a former swing district that has swung further toward their party in recent years.
The winner will face former state Rep. Jeff Pierce, R-Dresden, who lost that seat in 2018 after Democrats unearthed a felony drug conviction from the 1980s. It barred him from having guns, but he admitted to hunting with them without knowing he was breaking state and federal laws.
Charges against him for fraudulently obtaining a hunting license were dropped in 2019 due to his participation in a restorative justice program. Before that, then-Gov. Paul LePage pardoned Pierce of the decades-old drug charges on his way out of the Blaine House.
