The 2024 Maine Democratic presidential primary took place on March 5, 2024, as part of the Democratic Party primaries for the 2024 presidential election. 24 delegates to the Democratic National Convention were allocated to presidential candidates, with 8 additional unpledged delegates. The contest was held on Super Tuesday alongside primaries in 14 other states and territories and its Republican counterpart. This was a semi-closed primary where party members may only vote in their respective party's primary, but unenrolled voters may choose a party's primary to participate in. This change in law from Maine's previous closed primary went into effect on May 14, 2022, without Gov. Janet Mills' signature.
As the incumbent, Joe Biden easily won around 83% of votes, with limited opposition from representative Dean Philips, who gathered just over 6% of the vote. Additionally, there was a portion of more than 10 % of blank ballots, inspired by the anti-Gaza war movements in the previous primaries of New Hampshire and Michigan.
The filing deadline was December 1. Two candidates met the requirements to collect 2,000 signatures and appear on the ballot:
The Maine Coalition for Palestine launched an effort to convince voters to write-in "Ceasefire" in the primary, drawing inspiration from a similar campaign in New Hampshire and the success of the campaign for uncommitted votes in Michigan. However, as Maine state law only requires that votes for declared write-in candidates be tallied, these votes were counted as blank ballots.
Biden won every county by a comfortable margin. He performed best in Lincoln County, reaching slightly less than 90% of the vote. Conversely, he recorded his worst result in Aroostook County, where both Phillips and blank ballots reached their best performance. Phillips secured the second place in Franklin, Kennebec and Oxford counties, while falling to the third in the other thirteen.
Biden won both districts by more than 80% of the vote. Both he and blank votes performed better in the smaller, more urban first district, while Phillips recorded a better result in the larger, more rural second district, which was also the only one in New England to back Donald Trump in 2020.