Nirav Shah

Office Sought: Governor

District: All

Towns Served: All

About Nirav Shah

Dr. Nirav Shah is an attorney, economist and public health leader. After nearly a decade as a healthcare lawyer, Shah was chosen to lead the Illinois Department of Public Health. Shah managed the state’s multi-million-dollar public health budget and worked across the aisle to address the opioid crisis, maternal mortality, and childhood lead poisoning.

In 2019, Governor Janet Mills appointed Shah to be Director of the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention. As head of the Maine CDC, he worked to rebuild the agency, which laid the foundation for swift and comprehensive responses to the COVID pandemic, leading to Maine achieving among the highest vaccination rates in the country.

Because of his effective leadership in Maine, President Biden’s administration tapped Shah to become the Principal Deputy Director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention – the agency’s second in command. In 2025, Shah returned home to Maine as a faculty member at Colby College to teach the next generation of public health leaders.

Now, Shah is running for Governor to put his experience to work, guide our state through the challenges ahead, and build a stronger, more affordable Maine. Shah is focused on fixing housing, funding healthcare, feeding kids, and fueling growth – all while safeguarding Maine from harmful, neglectful and outright dangerous federal policies issued from the Trump Administration.

Platform Issues:

• Feed Kids: It is unconscionable that one in five children in Maine go hungry. This is the highest rate of childhood hunger in New England. Fuel the Economy: By growing Maine’s economy responsibly, we can attract more young working families to Maine.
• Fix Housing: Maine needs to build housing of all types. We can do so by cutting red tape, expanding affordable housing, helping first-time buyers, and growing the skilled trades so Maine can build its way out of the housing crisis.
  
• Fund Healthcare: Care should be affordable, accessible, grounded in science, and delivered with dignity – not a business model that puts corporate incentives ahead of patients.
• Fight Trump: State leaders are the last line of defense from the harmful, neglectful and outright dangerous federal policies issued from the Trump Administration.

Priorities in Office

• Eliminate childhood hunger in Maine
• Build more housing and make it more affordable to rent or own a home
• Reduce health care costs, train and keep more providers in Maine, and chart a clear path toward universal coverage
• Strengthen rural infrastructure — from health care and child care to schools and housing
• Fuel the growth of Maine’s economy to support small business and more good paying jobs for Mainers