Eager to preserve their majority in the Senate, Democrats are rolling the dice in Maine on a popular independent former governor who is seeking Senator Olympia J. Snowe ’s seat, in the hope that he sides with them next year if elected.

On Wednesday, Representative Chellie Pingree, a Democrat, announced that she would not run to succeed Ms. Stowe, a moderate Republican who announced last week that she would not run for re-election. Another Democrat, former Gov. John Baldacci, may still run, but party strategists say Ms. Pingree was their strongest candidate.

Ms. Pingree’s decision clears the way for former Gov. Angus King , a left-leaning independent, whose candidacy has put Democrats in a bind. The party badly wants to win the Snowe seat to offset possible losses in more conservative states like North Dakota and Nebraska. But Mr. King, who supports abortion rights, was likely to siphon off support from the Democratic candidate. As one Senate Democratic strategist said, either Mr. King will be the next senator or Republicans will keep the seat.

“I think with Pingree, it was an easy call for her,” said Mark Brewer, an assistant professor of political science at the University of Maine . “There was no guarantee that Angus King was going to win this race, but I would have to say at this point, Angus King was the favorite. She was going to have to give up her House seat to do it, which was going to be an ultra safe seat for her.”.

In a statement, Ms. Pingree, a favorite of liberal activists and a former head of Common Cause , said, “Although the prospect of running for and possibly serving in the United States Senate was very exciting, I believe I will best serve the people of Maine by running for re-election to the House.”

Democratic officials adamantly maintained that they did not push Ms. Pingree from the race, and they say they have not spoken to Mr. King. If he is elected, there is no guarantee that Mr. King will align himself with the Democrats and support their candidate for majority leader, but Democrats see little chance of him siding with Republicans.

“He won’t say, and we won’t ask,” the Democratic strategist said.

If Mr. King remains independent and leans toward neither party, he would forgo any committee assignments and other benefits, an unlikely move.

In a surprise that could reconfigure the fight to control the Senate, Senator Olympia Snowe, a three-term Republican from Maine, said Tuesday she would not run for re-election, citing excessive partisanship in the Senate.

“After 33 years in the Congress this was not an easy decision,” said Ms. Snowe in a prepared statement. “My husband and I are in good health. We have laid an exceptionally strong foundation for the campaign, and I have no doubt I would have won re-election. It has been an indescribable honor and immeasurable privilege to serve the people of Maine, first in both houses of Maine’s legislature and later in both houses of Congress. To this day, I remain deeply passionate about public service, and I cherish the opportunity I have been given for nearly four decades to help improve the lives of my fellow Mainers.”

Ms. Snowe, a moderate who cast key votes in bills that were dear to Democrats including the stimulus bill, was facing a Tea Party-backed challenger, but one who had failed to gain much traction in a state where Ms. Snowe remained popular and well known.

Ms. Snowe said the lack of comity and bipartisanship in the current Congress was a key motivating factor to her sudden retirement, which would well upend Republican efforts to retake the Senate; the party needs four seats to do so.

A day before Maine was to hold more caucuses, the state Republican Party on Friday afternoon reaffirmed that Mitt Romney was still leading Ron Paul in the caucuses that had been held so far.

The party recounted the votes for its nonbinding straw poll after complaints from some towns, like Belfast and Waterville, that their votes were omitted from the official tally that party officials announced last Saturday.

Those results showed Mr. Romney ahead of Mr. Paul by 194 votes; the results of the recount announced Friday showed him ahead by 239 votes.

Only 5,814 ballots have been cast so far in Maine’s convoluted Republican caucuses, amounting to about 2 percent of the state’s registered Republicans.

But these results are awaiting caucuses that have not yet been held. Still to come are votes from rural Washington County, where caucuses will be held Saturday, as well as towns in a few other counties around the state.

The party had planned all along to announce the results of its straw poll last Saturday knowing that several towns would not have voted. But it did not predict the uproar that ensued, much of it initially from Paul supporters who were furious that the results did not include many towns that might have given them the edge.

The outrage grew as the new media further scrutinized the caucus process, and many Maine officials became embarrassed at the Byzantine nature and the party’s complicated rules.

Party officials now say they will not announce the final results of the straw poll until March 10, after all towns have voted and reported their results.

The presidential straw poll is a meaningless beauty contest unrelated to the more important selection of the state’s 24 delegates, which will take place at a state party convention in May.

The distended process, and the fact that the delegates, once selected, are not bound to vote for a particular candidate, have reduced the state’s relevance in the national nominating process.

Ron Paul’s campaign is claiming that it could still win the presidential preference poll in the Maine caucus because of a county that postponed its vote and will hold its caucus next Saturday, Feb. 18.

On Saturday, the Maine Republican Party declared Mitt Romney the winner of the presidential preference vote, which he led by 194 ballots based on the caucuses that have been held so far.

State Republicans said they considered the results of the straw poll final . However, Washington County, in the easternmost part of the state, postponed its caucus after a snowstorm was forecast there. The Washington County G.O.P. Chair, Chris Gardner, said his county would conduct the straw poll at its caucuses and will report the results to the state.

All if this will be moot unless Mr. Paul is able to make up 194 votes in the county.

Based on how the county voted in 2008, that seems unlikely. Just 113 votes total were cast in the county in 2008, and only 8 of those were for Mr. Paul. John McCain, instead, won the plurality.

In addition, Mr. Romney narrowly won the two counties, Hancock and Penobscot, that border Washington County to the west and which are probably the best demographic match for it — although Mr. Paul won sparsely-populated Aroostook County, which borders it to the north, where he took 81 votes to Mr. Romney’s 26.

However, Washington County might theoretically have some untapped potential for Mr. Paul. It is rural and relatively poor — demographics that tend to suit him more than Mr. Romney. And it is relatively conservative, having split its vote about evenly between Barack Obama and Mr. McCain in 2008 when Mr. Obama won Maine as a whole fairly easily.

Mitt Romney averted embarrassment Saturday when he was declared the winner of a presidential straw poll in Maine’s non-binding caucuses.

He won 39 percent of the vote , barely edging out Representative Ron Paul of Texas, the only other Republican candidate to campaign actively in the state. Mr. Paul drew 36 percent.

Rick Santorum won 18 percent, and Newt Gingrich 6 percent.

Mr. Romney’s victory came hours after he won a straw poll at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington, an annual meeting of conservative activists.

Although the vote in Maine had no substantive meaning in terms of delegates, losing it could have created a political headache for Mr. Romney, the former governor of Massachusetts, and extended a negative story line that had been building since last week when he lost Colorado, Minnesota and Missouri to Rick Santorum.

When Sen. Olympia Snowe explained her vote against the Senate jobs bill last week, she identified only one provision of the bill she disagreed with: the surcharge on taxpayers who earn more than $1 million in adjusted gross income. According to a study by Citizens for Tax Justice, only one-tenth of one percent of Maine taxpayers would be affected by the surcharge — that’s only about 375 people. While the rest of Snowe’s constituents struggle to survive bleak economic conditions, 375 Mainers are lucky to have a senator on their side.

But Snowe’s opposition to legislation that would create two million new jobs and cut taxes for virtually all Maine income tax payers simply because it included a small tax increase for only 375 Mainers raises an obvious question: Would Sen. Snowe have been one of those 375?

With political battles over state budgets and collective bargaining still playing out to varying degrees in Wisconsin, Ohio, Indiana, Maine, and several other states, 48% of Americans say they agree more with the unions in these disputes, while 39% agree more with the governors. Thirteen percent favor neither side or have no opinion.

A lawsuit was filed in Federal District Court on Friday over Gov. Paul LePage’s decision to remove a mural depicting the state’s labor history from the Labor Department’s building in Augusta. The lawsuit seeks to confirm the mural’s location, ensure that it is adequately preserved and restore it to the lobby of the Labor Department. It was filed on behalf of an organized labor representative, a workplace safety official, three artists and a lawyer. The governor contends that the mural depicting labor history overlooks the contributions of entrepreneurs. His press secretary, Adrienne Bennett, said the mural was “safe and secure, awaiting transfer to a suitable venue for public display.”

" As it turns out, it's not the idea of treating gay couples equally that bothers most Americans. It's the name of the legal arrangement. Call same-sex marriage by another term—civil union, domestic partnership, everything-but-marriage, Qualcomm Stadium, Death Cab for Cutie—and they're fine with it."

"I know the Bible can be a little hard to understand, so let me spell it out for you: God hates shellfish. You know what's a shellfish? Lobster. Because of this, I fully expect a ban on Maine's lobster industry ASAP. I know that's a major facet of your economy and all, but you've illustrated that God's word is more important than the well being of your citizens. I'm sure they'll understand the dip in the economy, since getting into heaven later is more important than this life."