FARMINGTON – A day after being unexpectedly trounced by Democratic incumbent Janet Mills for District 80’s House seat, Republican challenger Lance Harvell said he won’t run again against Mills.

“I’m not going to run against Janet again. It’s just too much work,” said Harvell, who has run against Mills twice previously, on Wednesday. “Janet is as prominent a Democrat as there is in Western Maine – certainly in Franklin County.”

Before Election Day, the race had been viewed as one of the closest in the state, with Farmington and Industry residents firmly on the side of Republican gubernatorial candidate local Chandler Woodcock.

But Tuesday, Mills beat Harvell by nearly 450 votes – a much greater margin than in her previous two races. Mills won by 148 votes in 2002 and 65 in 2004.

All sides seemed to think Democratic student voters from University of Maine at Farmington may have had a lot to do with the outcome.

Support from college students – because Mills is well-known there and because she’s anti-TABOR – played a big role in her win, Mills said Wednesday.

“There were probably 700 college kids that voted. That was probably the decisive factor,” Harvell agreed. College students handed out pamphlets against him Tuesday. “I don’t think that helped me, any,” he said.

Besides college support, Mills thinks local opposition to TABOR, the fact she is a well-known and widely approved incumbent, and the fact she is moderate helped her win, she said.

“Hopefully, it’s because I worked hard trying to be an effective legislator,” she said. “I think having a moderate philosophy on fiscal matters and not supporting TABOR helps me. I think people were very skeptical about TABOR toward the end of the campaign.”

Harvell put on a great campaign, too, Mills said. She added she thinks he may have relied a little too heavily on Woodcock’s support carrying him through.

The head of Farmington’s Republican party, Fred Smith, suggested that while both candidates put on strong campaigns, Mills’ fiscal attitudes may have helped her win, appealing to college students and educators, as well as moderates.

“I was actually rather surprised,” he said Wednesday. “I thought Lance Harvell was going to win.”

Anti-GOP sentiment on a national level unseated Republicans across the country and probably had an effect on his own race, Harvell said.

“We got beat up yesterday,” he said. “We got beat up everywhere.”

“This is politics,” Harvell said. “Sure, you know, you work hard, you like to win.”

But he agrees with Mills on many issues, and thinks she’s done a good job in the House. Whether he’ll run again when she’s not on the ballot, is anybody’s guess.