We may be witnessing the rise of a new phenomenon in Maine: the candidate feint.

No, this isn’t when a candidate suddenly keels over in the middle of a clambake. Instead, it’s when a candidate either runs for office or plants the idea that he or she might run for office without any expectation of actually winning. An excellent recent example of this was when former Secretary of State Matthew Dunlap floated the notion that he might challenge incumbent 2nd District Congressman Jared Golden in the Democratic primary.

Dunlap got some attention for it, briefly, allowing him to test the waters — or, rather, dip his toe in them — then proceeded to take no concrete steps toward actually running. He didn’t file with the Federal Election Commission in order to begin raising money, for instance — a necessary first step for candidates for federal office. Instead, he got his name in the conversation briefly, allowing him to see what the reaction might be should he actually take the full plunge.

Another form of candidate feint, an even more concrete one, is the individual who actually runs for office, even as he or she knows that they have no chance whatsoever of winning. They’re often waging these quixotic campaigns for similar reasons as candidates floating rumors: just to get the attention. We had a good example of this when current Secretary of State Shenna Bellows ran against Sen. Susan Collins in 2014, and when former Maine GOP chair Demi Kouzounas ran against Sen. Angus King in 2024.

Everyone knew that the incumbents were going to win reelection handily; the opposition party merely had to find a nominal candidate willing to fall on a proverbial sword. It worked better for Bellows than it has thus far for Kouzounas. Bellows ended up becoming a state senator, secretary of state and gubernatorial candidate, while Kouzounas faded back into the obscurity from whence she came.

So, why would anyone run for office with no hope at all of winning? Well, to build up their name ID, test strategies and learn, of course. There’s nothing inherently wrong with that. Most reasonable observers will realize that a first-time candidate who nobody’s ever heard of isn’t going to oust a longtime incumbent. While I realize that there are, yes, literal examples of that happening in American history, they’re notable more as the exception than the rule. Most of the time, when someone runs for high office as their first political act against an entrenched incumbent (or at all, really), they just wind up losing.

There’s nothing inherently wrong with this approach, if one does it honestly. You talk a good game about beating the incumbent, you manage expectations and you don’t waste a lot of money. That’s how this sort of campaign should be run, and many candidates have acted this way in the past, even in Maine. It’s good for the party to have a credible candidate at least on the ballot, so it doesn’t discourage their supporters, and the candidate might be able to go on to have a political career later. Political parties, in fact, often recruit these kinds of candidates, and they sometimes can finagle decent appointed positions later on.

There’s a difference between that approach, though, and a candidate who’s running against an entrenched incumbent with little to no chance of victory who draws a lot of attention and resources while doing so. This isn’t about whether you believe in yourself. In either example, the candidate themselves may well and truly believe they have a chance of victory. I’m not questioning candidates’ motivations here necessarily. The problem is that a non-credible candidate who runs and convinces a lot of people to give him or her money while doing so both drains away resources from other, more credible candidates and destroys people’s faith in party politics when they inevitably lose.

I’ve spent quite a bit of time mocking Sara Gideon’s inept campaign against Susan Collins, and rightly so, but she was at least viewed as a credible candidate by the state and national parties. This year, though, Collins seems to be drawing the attention of far less credible candidates who might nonetheless get a lot of attention. It’s all well and good for people to get into a race to build up their profile for the future, but they shouldn’t waste everyone’s time and money while doing so. That’s when they cross the line from being a vanity candidate to doing harm on top of harm.