U.S. Sen. Angus King hasn’t exactly been campaigning heavily since he announced his plans to seek a third six-year term.

He hasn’t needed to. King, an independent who caucuses and typically votes with Democrats, has been a popular senator since he was first elected in 2012 – just as he was a popular two-term governor before that.

Polling during the election cycle has been limited, but King holds a big advantage over three competitors seeking their first elected office – Republican Demi Kouzounas, former chair of the Maine Republican Party; Democrat David Costello, who has decades of experience in government; and independent Jason Cherry, a former FBI agent.

King’s candidacy is a testament to the power of incumbency in Congress, said L. Sandy Maisel, professor of government at Colby College.

“He’s popular, he does constituent work, he’s around all the time,” Maisel said. “I think people say, ‘He’s good, why should we replace him?’ ”

This year’s U.S. Senate race in Maine looks vastly different from the 2020 contest between Republican Susan Collins and her challenger, Democrat Sara Gideon. Like King, Collins was a strong incumbent, but her popularity had taken a hit following her support for Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh and she was seen as vulnerable. Millions of dollars poured into the race from outside Maine, and negative ads followed. Although the race appeared close for much of the summer, Collins won rather easily on Election Day.

King has run ads, but they have been positive. He hasn’t even mentioned his opponents, who haven’t been able to raise much money to match. And he’s been able to side-step questions about his age (he turned 80 this year) during the same election cycle that a sitting president of roughly the same age was forced to bow out.

“He doesn’t have to campaign any more than he wants to,” Maisel said. “He’s running effective, positive ads, nothing negative. And his opponents, there is a risk in running negative ads against him because he’s an icon.”

As of June 30, the most recent filing deadline, King had raised $4.8 million, more than nine times as much as Kouzounas ($503,997). Costello and Cherry had each raised a little more than $100,000, although in both cases the biggest donors were the candidates themselves.

The most recent poll, conducted by Portland-based Pan Atlantic Research from Sept. 5-15, showed King leading 53% to 23% over Kouzounas. Costello polled at 8% and Cherry at 1%, with 16% undecided. King also had the highest net favorability of any of Maine’s four members of Congress in that poll.

There are two debates scheduled this month, though many Mainers might already have voted by absentee.

With four names on the ballot in the Senate race, voters are getting the opportunity to rank their candidates in order of preference. The rankings could come into play and allow for a ranked choice runoff if no candidate gets more than 50% of the votes in the initial count.

Here’s a closer look at the candidates.

Independent Angus King

King, who turned 80 in March, said he’s treating this campaign like any other he’s waged, even though he enjoys front-runner status.

“(Former U.S. Sen.) Olympia Snowe once said there are only two types of campaigns you can run – scared and unopposed – so I’ve been taking it seriously,” King said in a phone interview from his Brunswick home.

He said when he was first elected in 2012 – after Snowe decided not seek reelection, incidentally – he expected to serve two terms and be done. King previously served as Maine’s governor from 1995-2003 and was a lawyer and founder of an energy conservation firm before that.

“A couple things changed my mind,” he explained about his decision to run for Senate again. “No. 1, we are in perilous times. There are very serious issues from housing, the border, taxes; reproductive rights, the list goes on. There is a lot left to do.”

The second reason, King said, is his fear that the political middle is shrinking. He said the Senate has lost strong moderates from both parties, and this year, Sens. Joe Manchin (West Virginia), Kyrsten Sinema (Arizona) and Mitt Romney (Utah) are all stepping down.

“I don’t want to see the Senate turn into the House and become totally partisan,” he said. “We need to keep people in the middle who are willing to talk to one another.”

King also recognizes that seniority matters in the Senate. He’ll never match the longevity of some of his colleagues, but a third term would move him up the list.

Asked about his age, King said it was a valid question given the fact that President Biden was effectively forced to step down because of his age. Biden is one year older than King.

But King was quick to point out that Rolling Stones frontman Mick Jagger is also a year older than him.

“I have no health issues. I’ve got plenty of energy,” he said. “The truth is, people age differently. … I wouldn’t be doing this if I felt I couldn’t.”

The Senate is filled with politicians in their 60s and 70s, but only five other senators are older than King.

King, who endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris and has been sharply critical of former President Donald Trump, said he hopes the next Congress will be able to move on legislation that tackles the housing crisis and inflation.

He also said the failure to pass a border bill in recent years has been regrettable. In 2018, he and a Republican colleague worked on a bill that would have funded a wall while also providing a path to legal status for so-called “dreamers.” Trump threatened to veto, and Republicans walked away.

“And this year … we came up with the strongest border bill in decades,” he said, only to have Trump, now a candidate, pressure Republicans against supporting it.

Another issue he thinks Congress needs to tackle seriously is health care.

“Prevention is a big issue in health care,” he said. “Medicare only pays for an illness or an operation. If you break your hip they will pay to fix it, but if you need a non-slip bathmat, they won’t pay for that. And health care costs are what really drive the deficit.”

Democrat David Costello

Costello, 63, is realistic about his chances.

He said he’d prefer not to run against King, whom he respects and agrees with on many issues.

“But I don’t think his approach of reaching across the aisle in today’s Washington is working,” Costello said recently from a café in Brunswick, where he lives. “It’s more fantasy to me than reality. I understand it’s good PR, it’s good electioneering, but it’s empty from a public policy delivery and benefits perspective.”

Costello grew up in Old Town, outside Bangor, and has spent much of his adult life outside Maine.

But his involvement in politics and policy dates to 1980, when he dropped out of the University of Maine to campaign for Ted Kennedy, who was running for president.

One of his first post-college jobs in Maine was in the Department of the Secretary of State under Bill Diamond.

Throughout the 1990s, Costello worked overseas for the U.S. State Department’s foreign assistance agency.

When he came back, he worked for the mayor of Baltimore, Martin O’Malley, and then followed him to Annapolis when he became governor. He served in O’Malley’s administration in a few roles, including deputy secretary of Maryland’s Department of the Environment.

Since then, Costello has been in the private sector. He and his family moved back to Maine in 2019 when his wife got a job here. He has done some work for the Natural Resources Council of Maine but doesn’t have plans beyond the campaign.

Costello said he would be a much more traditional Democrat and supports initiatives like universal pre-K, a public option for health care, raising the cap on Social Security and clawing back tax cuts for the wealthy to help pay for those programs.

King, he said, has been overly cautious.

“As a lifelong Democrat, I think his message of independence, quite frankly, has undermined the Democratic party’s efforts to put forward a lot of popular programs because it plays into what I believe is a false narrative that both parties are responsible for the failings in Washington,” he said. “I don’t see that. We have an increasingly intransigent Republican party that doesn’t want government to operate.”

Asked if he thought King was too old, Costello chose his words carefully.

“I certainly think he is up to the job now, but he’s going to be senator from (age) 81 to 87, and I think almost everybody would admit that there’s likely to be some decline” he said.

Costello said he’s been frustrated by the lack of support from the Democratic Party during his campaign, but he understands.

“King is a safe bet, but I do try to make the case that Democrats as a party need to support the kind of agenda I’ve talked about,” he said, adding that ranked choice voting serves as an “inoculation” for voters who might be worried about flipping the seat to Republicans.

Republican Demi Kouzounas

Kouzounas’ campaign initially responded to an interview request by the Press Herald but then stopped communicating and did not make the candidate available for this story.

Kouzounas, 68 of Saco, has run for office once before, when she lost a Maine House race to former Rep. Barry Hobbins in 2012.

She spent six years as chair of the Maine Republican Party from 2017-2023, before losing her bid last year to serve as party chair for another term. Her loss was widely attributed to a poor showing by Republicans during the 2022 election cycle.

Outside of politics, Kouzounas was a dentist with practices in Scarborough and Skowhegan until she sold them this year. She is also a U.S. Army veteran.

Kouzounas announced her candidacy in January and attributed her decision to run to a conversation she had with Collins.

That revelation didn’t sit well with King, who has enjoyed a good working relationship with Collins. In a statement from his office, King expressed disappointment that she “appears to have actively recruited a Republican candidate to run against him.”

Last month, former Gov. Paul LePage and former U.S. Rep. Bruce Poliquin co-hosted a fundraiser with Kouzounas.

Kouzounas, like most Republicans, has been a fervent Trump supporter. In the days after the 2020 election, Kouzounas repeated Trump’s unfounded claims that fraud was rampant.

“As far as we are concerned, President Trump is still our president until proven otherwise,” she said at the time.

She also has downplayed the events of Jan. 6, 2021, when Trump supporters breached the U.S. Capitol and tried to stop the certification of President Joe Biden. Kouzounas has since acknowledged Biden won the election.

She has campaigned on reliable Republican issues, including border security. One of her campaign ads features her visiting the border this year. On her campaign website, she labels herself as a “daughter of legal immigrants.” Her parents immigrated from Greece and for decades ran a restaurant in Old Orchard Beach.

On abortion, Kouzounas supported the Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe v. Wade but has said she does not support a national ban on access.

In a June interview with NewsCenter Maine, Kouzounas hit King for supporting Biden’s agenda, especially on the economy.

“He’s not independent. Susan Collins is more independent than he is,” she said.

Independent Jason Cherry

Jason Cherry, a retired FBI agent, decided to run for U.S. Senate before King announced his plans for reelection.

“I didn’t think he would run, so it felt like a good opportunity,” said Cherry, 54, who lives in Unity. “If it wasn’t for ranked choice voting, I think (my campaign) would be fruitless, but there is a small mathematical chance.”

Cherry grew up in Texas and Oklahoma and worked as a conservation officer and as a defense attorney before becoming a federal agent. He moved to Maine in December 2021.

His last FBI post was in Bangor, where he joked that the biggest case he worked involved the theft of catalytic converters from vehicles.

Cherry said he’s running as a true independent who believes in what he calls “executor-style representation.”

“I want the public to have more ownership over government,” he said. “There is too much power in the party organizations, and I don’t think they see the wider picture.”

On issues, Cherry said he would focus on bringing down the cost of living, especially housing.

“I make a decent living, but every time I pay $1,000 to fill up my oil tank, I just don’t understand how a lot of other people make it.”

He also feels strongly about solving the immigration crisis and puts his position somewhere between Democrats and Republicans. He criticized California Gov. Gavin Newsom for being too lenient but also called Trump’s recent rhetoric about Haitian immigrants in Ohio “ridiculous.”

“There is not enough infrastructure for the level of immigration we have now. It’s just chaos,” he said.

The hardest part of his campaign, though, has been getting his name out there. He’s been told he hasn’t qualified for the debates later this month because he’s not polling high enough. That surprised him.

Cherry has never held elected office before but said his entire career has been in public service.

“People want reform but feel powerless,” Cherry said. “There are a number of people with good ideas, but we have the same old status quo.”

King, he said, is a perfect representation of that.

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