AUGUSTA (AP) – A full day after the polls closed, author and organic farmer Jean Hay Bright claimed the Democratic nomination Wednesday to take on Maine’s political powerhouse, two-term Republican incumbent Olympia Snowe, for a U.S. Senate seat.

Hay Bright signaled that she was ready to move ahead as the presumptive victor in a Democratic primary over political newcomer Eric Mehnert, a lawyer from Orono, after unofficial voting tabulations showed her holding a narrow but inconclusive edge for hours.

On Wednesday night, Mehnert conceded.

“As the U.S. Senate primary race was decidedly close, we have spent the entire day analyzing the election data. We believe in the people of Maine and take great pride in our election process,” his campaign organization said.

“While close, the data confirms the choice they have made in selecting Jean Hay Bright as the Democratic candidate for US Senate. As a result, we have concluded that no further purpose could be served in seeking a recount,” the Mehnert camp said in a statement.

The victory is a breakthrough for Hay Bright, a former newspaper reporter who finished next-to-last in crowded primary races for the 2nd District congressional seat in 1994 and for the U.S. Senate two years later.

Snowe, who was unopposed on Republican ballots Tuesday, comes into this year undefeated in two Senate races, eight bids for Congress and three runs for the state Legislature.

The Democratic race became most exciting after it was over. The contest to take on Snowe, an odds-on favorite for re-election, attracted little attention before Tuesday’s balloting. But its neck-and-neck nature overnight and into Wednesday elevated interest among the politically curious.

In unofficial returns reported from 624 of 634 precincts – 98 percent – Hay Bright had 22,266 votes, or 51 percent, and Mehnert had 21,688 votes, or 49 percent.

Hay Bright, 58, of Dixmont, moved to Maine as a homesteader during the back-to-the-land movement of the 1970s and comes out of the left-wing, anti-war, often rural-based element of the Maine Democratic Party that embraced Dennis Kucinich for president in 2004.

On Wednesday, Hay Bright aligned herself with her primary election rival.

“Eric ran a quality campaign,” she said. “Our combined efforts during the primary, where we both focused on the destructive record of the Bush administration and Olympia Snowes complicity in that agenda, will serve as the foundation of our fall campaign.

“We understand the size of the task in front of us and we are prepared to meet that challenge,” Hay Bright said in a statement.

Snowe, unopposed for the Republican Senate nomination as she seeks a third term, announced Wednesday some additions to her campaign staff and the opening of a new campaign office in Bangor.

“We have been steadily building a grassroots network of campaign leaders throughout the state, and we are looking forward to a busy summer and fall with an energetic network of staff and volunteers,” Snowe campaign Chairman Ted O’Meara said in a statement.

“I’m grateful to all those Maine Democrats who voted in the primary,” Hay Bright said in a statement, “and to our hundreds of volunteers and supporters who made this victory possible. Now we move beyond the primary and begin the task of unseating Olympia Snowe and increasing the Democratic margin in the United States Senate.”