A version of this article was originally published in The Daily Brief, our Maine politics newsletter. Sign up here for daily news and insight from politics editor Michael Shepherd.
The race for mayor of Maine’s largest city got more interesting on Thursday, when Portland City Councilor Mark Dion joined a November race that has been sleepy so far.
The former Cumberland County sheriff, state lawmaker and lawyer joins fellow Councilor Andrew Zarro and political newcomer Dylan Pugh in running to replace the outgoing Kate Snyder in a job that has been a political morass over the past decade.
The context: Being mayor is a full-time job carrying a six-figure salary in Portland, but it comes with little power. The council appoints a city manager that runs day-to-day operations.
Mayors have struggled to gain traction since the city shifted to this elected mayor in 2011. The first mayor lost to the second one. Then Mayor Ethan Strimling was beaten in 2019 by Kate Snyder, who is not running for reelection after presiding over the pandemic and during a fight last year that ended with voters rejecting a stronger mayoral position.
How he fits: Dion has an interesting background. He was an also-ran candidate in the 2018 Democratic gubernatorial primary won by Mills, only mustering 5,200 votes and a fifth-place finish. He won his council seat in the 2020 election.
He was progressive on the statewide level, but he is more conservative in on the left-tilted scale of Portland politics. Zarro is more liberal, but both seem likely to follow in Snyder’s more low-key style of trying to build consensus in the city rather than use the bully pulpit to build up movements like Strimling did.
“My work with the council and city staff will focus on serving the best interests of our residents who deserve a city that is safe, affordable, and welcoming of economic opportunities that will inspire our collective vision of what Portland could be,” Dion said in a statement.
What’s next: One factor in the small mayoral field and the low-key campaign so far was the June implementation of a taxpayer-funded campaign system. The more activist class of progressives who want fast change in the city are without a strident candidate, something that could make the Zarro-Dion contest into a quieter one over the city’s future.
