Maine Senate race: First reactions to independent Angus King's victory

Former Maine Gov. Angus King, an independent who will likely caucus with the Democrats, has won his race to replace retiring GOP Sen. Olympia Snowe.

(Image credit: AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty)

last updated 8 January 2015

Independent former Gov. Angus King secured a comfortable victory over two challengers in his bid for retiring moderate Republican Olympia Snowe's Senate seat on Tuesday, easily beating Republican Secretary of State Charlie Summers and Democratic state Sen. Cynthia Dill, according to projections from the The New York Times and the Associated Press.

Democrats found themselves in a conundrum with King as the odds-on favorite. Senate Democrats believe that the former governor, who considers himself "unbeholden to parties," would caucus with them when called upon. As a result, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC) declined to endorse the low-polling Dill, but couldn't really endorse King outright, causing the group to funnel its money into ads attacking Summers — Maine's Secretary of State and a veteran of the Iraq War. "For all intents and purposes," says Aaron Blake at the Washington Post, this made the former governor the unspoken "Democratic nominee."