Result
Maine House Speaker Ryan Fecteau (D-Biddeford) won another term in House District 132 on Nov. 3 without an opponent, and two days later House Democrats chose him to lead the chamber again. No other candidate filed for the seat, and Fecteau was also unopposed in the June 9 Democratic primary.
The full House will vote on the speakership when the 133rd Legislature is sworn in Wednesday, Dec. 2, the day his new two-year term begins. Fecteau first won a House seat in 2014, left in 2022 because of term limits and returned in 2024, when Democrats again made him speaker, Maine Morning Star reported.
Candidates and Platforms
Fecteau became Maine’s first openly gay speaker in 2020, at age 28, making him one of the youngest people to hold the job. He graduated from The Catholic University of America in 2014, the same year he first won his seat, according to his legislative profile.
After the caucus vote, he named health care, child care, affordable housing and energy costs as the challenges the next Legislature must take on. Those themes ran through the supplemental budget his office promoted in April, which included a 3.07% cost-of-living increase for direct-care workers, child care subsidies to clear waitlists, eviction prevention and heating assistance, according to a post on his website.
District and Chamber
District 132 covers part of Biddeford, his hometown, in York County. Before Fecteau’s return, Democrat Erin Sheehan held the seat and won it in 2022 by beating Republican Timothy Keenan 2,176 to 906, the Portland Press Herald reported.
Democrats won at least 85 of the House’s 151 seats on Nov. 3, up from 76 last session, based on races the Associated Press had called by Nov. 5, according to Maine Morning Star. That gives Fecteau a much larger majority to work with than the 76-seat majority he led this session.
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