It turns out that a big name was more important than big money in Maine’s Senate primary.

Democratic winner Cynthia Dill spent less than $40,000, the second-smallest amount in the four-way Democratic field. On the Republican side, the three biggest fundraisers, small businessman Scott D’Amboise, state Treasurer Bruce Poliquin and former state Senate President Rick Bennett, all came up short in a six-way race.

An 11th-hour $50,000 cash infusion that winning GOP candidate Charlie Summers personally provided may have helped him buy TV and radio time, but three of his rivals still outspent him.

In the end, the low voter turnout and large field of candidates favored those with name recognition more than deep pockets, said Mark Brewer, political science professor at the University of Maine.

“This is a very low turnout, and in all honesty, it wasn’t an enthusiastic turnout. The people who turned out didn’t turn out because they were in love with any of the candidates. They turned out because it was their civic duty. When you have those kind of elections, then it comes down to name recognition,” Brewer said.

The victories by Summers and Dill on Tuesday mean they’ll represent their parties in November’s general election. Also on the ballot will be four independents: former Gov. Angus King, businessman Steve Woods from Yarmouth, tea party activist and libertarian Andrew Ian Dodge, and Danny Dalton of Brunswick.

In the primary race, Summers had the benefit of having run three times for 1st Congressional District, as well as his tenure as secretary of state and previous post as regional chief of the Small Business Administration. Dill, a state senator from Cape Elizabeth, is well known in southern Maine.

All told, about 17 percent of eligible voters cast tallies in the primaries, which are open only to registered Republicans and Democrats. Unenrolled voters make up Maine’s largest voting bloc.

For the most part, campaign spending was relatively low, with only six of the 10 major-party candidates raising more than $100,000 and only a few buying television advertising.

In the Republican race, D’Amboise raised nearly $700,000, much of it from out-of-state donors; Poliquin raised more than $250,000, including $124,000 of his own money and in-kind donations.

Despite his fundraising advantage, D’Amboise faced a daunting task when five other GOP candidates jumped into the race with the retirement of Sen. Olympia Snowe from the Senate. Poliquin, especially, appeared to eat into D’Amboise’s core support of conservatives, libertarians and tea party activists.

“It’s very hard to start from a position of being unknown to winning a race with lots of other well-known candidates,” said Michael Franz, political science professor at Bowdoin College.

Summers, of Scarborough, provided $50,000 to his campaign less than two weeks before the election, but his total spending of about $160,000 ranked fourth among the GOP field, behind D’Amboise, of Lisbon Falls; Poliquin, of Georgetown; and Bennett, of Oxford, according to reports filed with the Federal Election Commission.

Also on the GOP ballot were Attorney General William Schneider of Durham and state Sen. Debra Plowman of Hampden. The other Democrats in the Senate primary were former Secretary of State Matthew Dunlap of Old Town, state Rep. Jon Hinck of Portland and Ben Pollard, a Portland homebuilder.