As a cold breeze whipped along the Kennebec River Wednesday morning in Hallowell, a trio of Democratic gubernatorial candidates stood chatting amiably with one another. 

The three — Secretary of State Shenna Bellows, former state Senate President Troy Jackson and former House Speaker Hannah Pingree — were about to hold a joint press conference.

“We all like each other,” Bellows said.

The three are “great friends,” Jackson said.

“We have known each other for a long time,” Pingree added.

Twenty-plus years, by my count.

They were all happy Wednesday to receive the endorsement of Maine’s Sierra Club, which urged voters in the June 9 Democratic primary to select the three as their top picks in the state’s ranked-choice race. Left out were Nirav Shah and Angus King III.

Since almost nobody thinks any of the five Democrats running for governor will get a majority of the votes in a competitive first round, ranked choices are almost certain to make the difference. So if three of them have an informal pact to help one another — it became a little more formal in Hallowell — it could go a long way toward icing out Shah and King.

“The great news is that you can vote for all of us,” Bellows declared.

What’s nice for the Democrats, including the absent Shah and King, is that all five of the candidates are treating each other with respect. This is a contest notable for its civility.

As I’ve explored in previous dismayed columns, it hasn’t been that way on the Republican side, where some of the contenders continue to rip into one another. 

If the GOP aversion to ranked-choice voting is so strong that it undermines its candidates’ ability to tame their worst instincts in the quest to persuade voters to rank them near the top, that’s a shame.

Pingree explained that, on the Democratic side, ranked-choice voting has promoted “a nicer way to campaign.” It rewards candidates who stay positive in their messaging.

Bellows said it “creates partnerships on important issues” rather than promoting divisions that can linger long after the primary and risk hurting Democrats’ chances in the general election come November.

As we’ve already seen, ranked-choice voting doesn’t guarantee that everyone will be kind on the campaign trail. The Democratic U.S. Senate primary isn’t a hotbed of civility — indeed, its growing harshness is likely to prove a drag for the party’s bid to unseat Sen. Susan Collins.

With that said, I left Hallowell feeling that the ranked-choice voting system Mainers adopted almost 10 years ago is proving successful for the health of state politics.

After working with one another for years, Pingree said plainly, “we don’t want to destroy those relationships over a campaign.”

Jackson agreed with her. “It’s a lot nicer to be able to work with each other as opposed to fighting and stuff like that,” he said.

Although “fighting and stuff” isn’t going away, we should be encouraged by Maine campaigns that are less inclined to go down that rocky road.