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Dan Ankeles

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Dan Ankeles
Image of Dan Ankeles

Democratic Party

Maine House of Representatives District 100
Tenure

2022 - Present

Term ends

2026

Years in position

2

Predecessor

Compensation

Base salary

16,245.12 for the first regular session. $11,668.32 for the second regular session.

Per diem

$70/day for lodging (or round-trip mileage up to $0.55/mile in lieu of housing, plus tolls). $50/day for meals.

Elections and appointments
Last elected

November 5, 2024

Education

High school

Phillips Academy

Bachelor's

University of Chicago, 2004

Personal
Birthplace
Massachusetts
Religion
Jewish
Profession
State representative
Contact

Official website

Official Facebook

Campaign website

Campaign X

Personal Facebook

Personal Instagram

Personal LinkedIn

Dan Ankeles (Democratic Party) is a member of the Maine House of Representatives, representing District 100. He assumed office on December 6, 2022. His current term ends on December 1, 2026.

Ankeles (Democratic Party) ran for re-election to the Maine House of Representatives to represent District 100. He won in the general election on November 5, 2024.

Ankeles completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2024. Click here to read the survey answers.

Biography

Dan Ankeles was born in Peabody, Massachusetts. Ankeles earned a bachelor's degree from the University of Chicago in 2004. His career experience includes working as a state representative, public radio producer, field organizer, and legislative aide.[1][2]

Committee assignments

2023-2024

Ankeles was assigned to the following committees:


The following table lists bills this person sponsored as a legislator, according to BillTrack50 and sorted by action history. Bills are sorted by the date of their last action. The following list may not be comprehensive. To see all bills this legislator sponsored, click on the legislator's name in the title of the table.

Elections

2024

See also: Maine House of Representatives elections, 2024

General election

General election for Maine House of Representatives District 100

Incumbent Dan Ankeles defeated Ivon Prescott Jr. in the general election for Maine House of Representatives District 100 on November 5, 2024.

Candidate
%
Votes
✔
Image of Dan Ankeles
Dan Ankeles (D) Candidate Connection
 
78.5
 
4,490
Silhouette Placeholder Image.png
Submit photo
Ivon Prescott Jr. (R)
 
21.5
 
1,230

Incumbents are bolded and underlined. The results have been certified. Source

Total votes: 5,720
Candidate Connection = candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey.
If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you, complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey.

Do you want a spreadsheet of this type of data? Contact our sales team.

Democratic primary election

Democratic Primary for Maine House of Representatives District 100

The following candidates advanced in the ranked-choice voting election: Dan Ankeles in round 1 .

Incumbents are bolded and underlined. The results have been certified. Source

Total votes: 623
Candidate Connection = candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey.

Republican primary election

Republican Primary for Maine House of Representatives District 100

The following candidates advanced in the ranked-choice voting election: Ivon Prescott Jr. in round 1 .

There were no incumbents in this race. The results have been certified. Source

Total votes: 156
Candidate Connection = candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey.

Endorsements

Ballotpedia did not identify endorsements for Ankeles in this election.

2022

See also: Maine House of Representatives elections, 2022

General election

General election for Maine House of Representatives District 100

Dan Ankeles won election in the general election for Maine House of Representatives District 100 on November 8, 2022.

Candidate
%
Votes
✔
Image of Dan Ankeles
Dan Ankeles (D) Candidate Connection
 
100.0
 
4,056

There were no incumbents in this race. The results have been certified. Source

Total votes: 4,056
Candidate Connection = candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey.
If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you, complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey.

Do you want a spreadsheet of this type of data? Contact our sales team.

Withdrawn or disqualified candidates

Democratic primary election

Democratic Primary for Maine House of Representatives District 100

The following candidates advanced in the ranked-choice voting election: Dan Ankeles in round 1 .

There were no incumbents in this race. The results have been certified. Source

Total votes: 975
Candidate Connection = candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey.

Republican primary election

Republican Primary for Maine House of Representatives District 100

The following candidates advanced in the ranked-choice voting election: Angela Lallier in round 1 .

There were no incumbents in this race. The results have been certified. Source

Total votes: 128
Candidate Connection = candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey.

Campaign themes

2024

Ballotpedia survey responses

See also: Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection

Candidate Connection

Dan Ankeles completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2024. The survey questions appear in bold and are followed by Ankeles' responses. Candidates are asked three required questions for this survey, but they may answer additional optional questions as well.

Expand all | Collapse all

I'm a former journalist, Brunswick town councilor and legislative staffer who is seeking a second term in the Maine House of Representatives. During my first term, I was able to pass three bills, including a law to make it easier to get grant money to repair Brunswick Landing infrastructure. I also helped unclog Maine's courts and attacked cyclical poverty by reforming Maine's Operating After Suspension laws. And I successfully passed an expansion of Maine's working waterfront property tax relief program. All three laws received unanimous bipartisan support.

Along with others, I used my position on the Transportation Committee to help guarantee the authorization of the Mountain Division Rail trail, which will be an incredible benefit for Western Maine. I was the key House member that got that through the House, and I was honored to assist the Maine DOT in that effort. I also helped shepherd the Trails Bond toward a unanimous committee vote, despite a difficult political climate when it comes to bonding.

As a member of the Appropriations Committee, I was able to help Maine fund $72 million in diverse classes of new housing, including creating Maine's first rent-relief program, supporting mobile home park residents wanting to form a co-op and preventing low-barrier shelters from shutting down.

In 2025, I'm looking forward to focusing on removing all toxic firefighting foam permanently from Brunswick Landing and from most of Maine.
  • I'm always accessible and open to communicating with constituents.
  • I support the rights of women to make their own health care decisions and believe more generally that healthcare itself is a right and not a privilege.
  • I ran in part to help integrate the former Naval airbase into the rest of Brunswick, and now that work becomes even more important in the wake of the worst AFFF spill in Maine history. We must mandate the foam's removal, conduct a full statewide inventory of PFAS-containing firefighting foam, and create a statewide AFFF takeback and disposal program similar to what New Hampshire has.
Trail expansion, bike and pedestrian safety, climate resilience, reducing towns' dependence on regressive property taxation, solving both the housing and the workforce shortages.
I look up to my dad and grandfather, who both have fought for their communities in different ways. Their sense of social and economic justice is extraordinarily strong, and I hope I can emulate them through my work.

I look up to Presidents Obama and Biden, who were both successful in very different ways in changing this country for the better. I also look up to Nancy Pelosi because of how effective she was at counting votes and using power to achieve gains for working families across the nation.

These days, I admire the three remaining liberal justices on the Supreme Court, all of whom are penning powerful dissenting opinions that will one day become the basis for overturning many of the terrible rulings of the Roberts Court.
I would recommend reading the Art of Power, by Nancy Pelosi. It's doesn't talk so much about how-to exercise power, but why to exercise it: ensuring we leave this place better than we found it for future generations. The book makes the case for progressive values via using and championing our most cherished government institutions. Like Speaker Emerita Pelosi, I am an institutionalist, because that's how I believe you can do the most good for the most people.
Accessibility and the ability to communicate are so important, especially the further down the ballot you go. I represent only 9,000 people, and it's important that every single one of them knows they can talk to me, ask me questions, tell me off or get navigating state government, no matter what their political affiliation.

If you fight a hard-fought political battle, and you end up burning a bridge, you have to be willing to rebuild that bridge from scratch. If you can avoid burning bridges on either side of the aisle, that's even better. I haven't always lived up to that, but I'm someone who people know wears his heart on his sleeve and will go to extraordinary lengths to pass policies that help others.
I have a strong work ethic, I never leave the table, and I build large coalitions to get things done. I am patient but also passionate, and I have very little tolerance for BS.
A good representative will stay true to their dual oaths to both the Maine and the US Constitutions. They will keep constituents safe, serve them well when they reach out for help, protect their freedoms, and foster their economic and social well-being. They must work hard to make sure government is effective and efficient as possible and that it is a champion for justice. Elected officials must sometimes exercise forbearance, but the default setting cannot be "wouldn't it be better if we just did nothing?" You see that way too often in elected officials too afraid or too skeptical to try something new.
A Brunswick that is cleaner and healthier than it is right now.
I watched the first Gulf War on CNN when I was just a kid. They had never broadcast an actual war on cable television before.
I was a teenager and I worked for a couple summers in a video rental store. Those no longer exist.
A Confederacy of Dunces. It's not just a great and funny work of literature, but - even though it's not about politics - it's a great reminder that most people in politics take themselves way too seriously.
Leslie Knope from Parks and Rec. She gets stuff done, and she never gives up no matter how long it takes.
Good Luck Babe by Chappell Roan.
I've always just felt the weight on the world on me no matter what. Sometimes it's hard to pull back, keep my head down and power through.
Ideally we should be collaborative when possible, but we also as legislators are responsible for correcting the executive branch when it is wrong and holding them accountable when they fail.
A housing shortage, a shortage of workers, especially across all the health professions and the threat climate change poses to our coast and all our heritage industries like our fisheries and our forests.
Yes. Before I joined the House, I had nine years as a legislative aide and five years as a town councilor. Because of that, I already knew the budget process and the legislative process. That enabled me to get bills passed and get two powerful committee posts that I have used in the service of my community and all the people of Maine.
Yes. None of the work I have done would have succeeded without the working relationships and the friendships I have built over the years. It's the only way to build trust, and trust is the only way to achieve bipartisan results.
Sen. Peggy Rontundo is my hero and my mentor. She's the current State Senator from Lewiston and an expert on budgeting. She makes the tough calls when money is tight, but she also knows how to squeeze as much out of a budget as anyone in Maine. She stands up for our most vulnerable in a way that makes me proud to serve alongside her.
Maybe someday I would run for the Maine Senate once Senator Daughtry terms out, but that's as far as I'd ever be willing to go. My home and family are here in Brunswick, and I love my community dearly.
It's not an individual story but a group of stories: older Mainers on fixed incomes and middle class families telling me that their property valuation and property tax rate have gone up so much that they are in danger of being priced out of their homes. It is what keeps me committed to the notion that Maine's tax code MUST reflect people's ability to pay. Right now, that doesn't happen, and both parties need to start taking this on rather than treating it like some political third rail.
A campaign volunteer knocked on an older man's door, and they introduced themselves to each other. The young volunteer asked the man "Have you lived in Maine your whole life?" And the man replied "Not yet."
I think the Legislature should be allowed to step in under certain circumstances if we feel that emergency powers are being abused. I have not felt the present administration has done anything that would even come close to rising to that level though, even during COVID.
Please see above my three bills to help rid Brunswick and Maine of AFFF toxic firefighting foam.
Pretty much all of the progressive ones.
I have been so happy to serve on both the Transportation and Appropriations Committees, and I'm the only freshman to serve on both committees that deal with state budgets. Both committees are where transportation, climate, housing and workforce development all meet.
I don't need a long answer for this. We should always have full fiscal transparency and protect all the state offices charged with carrying out audits and investigations of government offices, programs and offshoots.
I think we should keep things as they are.

Note: Ballotpedia reserves the right to edit Candidate Connection survey responses. Any edits made by Ballotpedia will be clearly marked with [brackets] for the public. If the candidate disagrees with an edit, he or she may request the full removal of the survey response from Ballotpedia.org. Ballotpedia does not edit or correct typographical errors unless the candidate's campaign requests it.

2022

Candidate Connection

Dan Ankeles completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2022. The survey questions appear in bold and are followed by Ankeles' responses. Candidates are asked three required questions for this survey, but they may answer additional optional questions as well.

Expand all | Collapse all

I began my career as a public radio producer for a show that covered public policy. After I while, I came to realize that just reporting on problems wasn't enough, and so I changed careers and became an organizer for the Maine Democratic Party. Through that work, I helped defend voting rights and restore Democratic majorities in the Maine Legislature. For the past nine years I worked as a legislative aide in the House Democratic Office, where I helped members advance priorities that improved life for our constituents. I left that position at the end of 2021 to run for the open House seat here in central Brunswick.

Locally, I have chaired our local recreation commission, volunteered as a soccer coach and participated on committees to improve policing, welcome new Mainers to Brunswick and improve public water access.

Right now I serve as an at-large member and the new vice chair of our Town Council, a deeply rewarding job that has brought opportunities to bring greater transparency and a real sense of optimism to the work of local government. I’m proud to say that, in my years on the Council, I have never once missed a meeting or a vote, and I always do my best to respond to people who reach out to me and bring more people into local government.

My wife, Cat, and I have lived in town 11 years, and together we are raising our children, Sam and Lucy, in the Brunswick school system.

  • The reasons I stepped away from being an aide to running for the Legislature was first - I feel like if I don’t try to do something to heal our overheated planet, to close the wealth gap, to stop the people who want to end our democracy, and to make sure everyone has ready access to basics like healthcare, education without crippling debt and housing, then I’m failing my kids and everyone in the generations that are coming into the world and making it even harder for them to live the lives they deserve to live.
  • And second, I’m running because Brunswick is facing some both specific and universal problems that requires an advocate who knows how to work with both state and local governments: Problems like the aging stormwater system at Brunswick Landing, which needs the state to step in to help with a major overhaul that will clean up the PFOS chemicals embedded inside and flowing into Harpswell cove. The cost and supply of housing, which - together with climate change - is the number one thing I’ve been hearing as I knock on doors. The way our state’s regressive tax code is erasing Brunswick’s economic diversity and harming seniors on fixed incomes. The heartbreaking number of people we are losing to overdoses.
  • Advocating for Brunswick in the Legislature is an honor and a great challenge. So is making sure Maine does right by everyone who lives here, resists attempts by the powerful to divide and dilute our collective strength, and sets an example for this country that you succeed through fairness, justice and policies that lift all of us up.
The number one thing I am hearing after having knocked on more than 1000 doors in my district is a growing fear over the cost of housing and the lack of supply.

We know that Maine has a deficit of 25,000 attainably priced units, and we know that renters are either seeing increases that outpace any wage growth or - and this is happening right in the heart of my district - building owners are simply deciding to convert rentals to condos so they can flip them in an overheated market. Here in Brunswick, we are in the midst of a building boom, but nearly all new units are market rate. Yes, it’s always good to take pressure off the supply crunch, but that is too indirect an approach to work all by itself. And by the way, as if it weren’t complex enough, we also face the danger of the housing crisis being used as a means to further divide immigrant and non-immigrant populations.

The state must aggressively fund new affordably priced units, and not just with one-time money, but through a sustainable and reliable funding source. The state needs to enact and follow up on LD 2003. It should help launch local land banks (land trusts but for housing), fund rental assistance, regulate Air B&Bs, and make sure housing vouchers are actually large enough to be usable. We know the positive ripple effects of stable housing. Investing heavily in it isn’t just the right thing to do morally speaking; the public policy and budgetary benefits are very clear as well.
We are a separate branch of government, and we should never lose our independence regardless of what party occupies the Blaine House. I'm proud to support many of Governor Mills' policies, but there are areas where there is respectful disagreement. I value the separation of powers as a means of keeping our democratic institutions healthy.
Yes, this is an essential part of the kind of coalition building we need to pass major policies.
Maine's current process is good as is because we require 2/3 majorities to draw new maps. This discourages partisan gerrymandering.
I am hoping to serve on the Environment and Natural Resources Committee to continue our outgoing representative's work on climate action, PFOS response and strong product stewardship laws.
We should not be afraid to accept that sometimes there is common ground right in front of us. We also shouldn't be compromising for its own sake if the compromise doesn't actually help solve a problem. Bipartisanship needs to be a means to a good public policy end, not an end in and of itself. That doesn't mean elected officials shouldn't be civil, act consistently in good faith and build relationships with colleagues of all political affiliations. I'm proud of having done that. But I'm also proud to be a strong progressive who is very clear eyed about the structural barriers holding Maine families back.

Note: Ballotpedia reserves the right to edit Candidate Connection survey responses. Any edits made by Ballotpedia will be clearly marked with [brackets] for the public. If the candidate disagrees with an edit, he or she may request the full removal of the survey response from Ballotpedia.org. Ballotpedia does not edit or correct typographical errors unless the candidate's campaign requests it.


Campaign finance summary

Note: The finance data shown here comes from the disclosures required of candidates and parties. Depending on the election or state, this may represent only a portion of all the funds spent on their behalf. Satellite spending groups may or may not have expended funds related to the candidate or politician on whose page you are reading this disclaimer. Campaign finance data from elections may be incomplete. For elections to federal offices, complete data can be found at the FEC website. Click here for more on federal campaign finance law and here for more on state campaign finance law.

Dan Ankeles campaign contribution history
YearOfficeStatusContributionsExpenditures
2024* Maine House of Representatives District 100Won general$2,430 $2,430
2022Maine House of Representatives District 100Won general$3,303 $3,303
Grand total$5,733 $5,733
Sources: OpenSecrets,  Federal Elections Commission ***This product uses the openFEC API but is not endorsed or certified by the Federal Election Commission (FEC).
* Data from this year may not be complete

Scorecards

See also: State legislative scorecards and State legislative scorecards in Maine

A scorecard evaluates a legislator’s voting record. Its purpose is to inform voters about the legislator’s political positions. Because scorecards have varying purposes and methodologies, each report should be considered on its own merits. For example, an advocacy group’s scorecard may assess a legislator’s voting record on one issue while a state newspaper’s scorecard may evaluate the voting record in its entirety.

Ballotpedia is in the process of developing an encyclopedic list of published scorecards. Some states have a limited number of available scorecards or scorecards produced only by select groups. It is Ballotpedia’s goal to incorporate all available scorecards regardless of ideology or number.

Click here for an overview of legislative scorecards in all 50 states.  To contribute to the list of Maine scorecards, email suggestions to editor@ballotpedia.org.


2024


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Maine House of Representatives District 100
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    Footnotes

    1. ↑ Information submitted to Ballotpedia through the Candidate Connection survey on April 16, 2022
    2. ↑ Information submitted to Ballotpedia through the Candidate Connection survey on October 7, 2024

    Political offices
    Preceded by
    Danny Costain (R)     		Maine House of Representatives District 100
    2022-Present    		 Succeeded by
    -


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