AUGUSTA (AP) — Republican congressional candidate Patrick Calder said Wednesday he’s supporting his rival, state Sen. Jon Courtney, despite Courtney’s paper-thin margin of victory in the GOP primary. Calder’s strong finish stunned nearly everyone watching the race in Maine’s 1st Congressional District.

“The primary is over,” Calder said during a news conference in Portland with Courtney. “We’re all on the same side now.”

In his concession to Courtney, the 29-yearold Calder said he will not ask for a recount and will work to get Courtney elected to Congress. Courtney, the Senate majority leader from Springvale, will carry the banner for the Republicans in the fall general election against two-term incumbent Democratic U.S. Rep. Chellie Pingree.

With 28,829 votes from all of the 1st District’s precincts counted, Courtney led Calder by 265 votes, a fraction of 1 percent. Maine has no automatic trigger for a recount, and only the apparent loser in an election can request one. The request must come within five days of the election.

Courtney said he was impressed with Calder’s message of working together with Republicans, Democrats and independents to repair the nation’s divisiveness and find solutions to problems — a style he said is in contrast to Pingree.

“Our congresswoman, she divides people,” Courtney said. “She disdains Republicans. I don’t disdain Democrats.”

Pingree said she had phoned Courtney on Wednesday afternoon to congratulate him.

“I’m looking forward to a healthy, positive debate this fall on the important issues that Maine families face. … I’m working hard to earn another term in Congress,” she said in a statement.

Calder, a merchant mariner from Portland, has not held public office. The closeness of the race surprised people, Calder said, but he believed all along that he would do better than most others expected. As the lead in the race shifted back and forth between himself and Courtney late Tuesday night, Calder said his low-key, person to-person campaign plan apparently worked.

“I basically tried something a little different. Just going around talking to small groups of people, sometimes one-on-one,” said Calder.

Courtney, 47, a five-term legislator and owner of a drycleaning business, enters the race at a financial disadvantage to Pingree, whose latest federal campaign finance report shows $210,158 in cash on hand, compared to $16,645 for Courtney.

The outcome in Maine’s other Republican congressional primary wasn’t in doubt from the time tallies came in showing Kevin Raye, the Maine Senate president, leading Blaine Richardson of Belfast. Raye ended up with 60 percent of the vote, according to unofficial tallies.

Raye’s win in the 2nd District sets up a rematch of the 2002 race between him and Michael Michaud, the Democrat who won that election. Michaud is now seeking his sixth congressional term.