Republican voters in Hancock and Washington counties will decide Tuesday whether to advance their sitting district attorney to the November election or whether to go a different direction.

Incumbent Matthew Foster, a Republican who has served District 7 for eight years, is being challenged by Steven Juskewitch, a local attorney and former prosecutor.

The district itself has made news in recent years because a vocal group from Washington County, including the sheriff’s office, have lobbied lawmakers to split the district in two. They’ve argued that Washington County needs its own district attorney because of increasingly violent crime related to the drug crisis.

But Foster told lawmakers in 2020 that he could not find enough attorneys to staff the Washington County branch of his office. He likened the idea to proposing to build a new school when there are no teachers available to staff it.

Ultimately, two attempts to split the district have failed in recent years, keeping the district intact. Whoever wins the GOP primary between Foster and Juskewitch will face unenrolled candidate Robert Granger on the November ballot. No Democrats filed to run for the seat.

Foster did not return multiple phone or email messages seeking an interview for this story. According to campaign finance reports, Foster transferred $30 from a previous run for office to this year’s campaign. Juskewitch donated $1,000 to himself for the campaign, spending nearly $600 on printed campaign materials, according to documents on file with the Maine Ethics Commission.

The low-budget race is quite a contrast to the Democratic district attorney primary in Cumberland County, where a George Soros-funded political action committee is spending $300,000 in an attempt to boost Jacqueline Sartoris over incumbent DA Jonathan Sahrbeck.

In the Downeast DA race, Juskewitch said he believes he could show residents of Washington County that he has the skill to manage the sprawling district. A retired Army officer, he served 28 years in various positions, including with the 82nd Airborne Division and as a teacher in problem solving and leadership.

“I have the experience of managing multiple offices,” he said. “I know what that’s like. I will make sure it’s well managed.”

The district has also been in the news lately because Foster is the one who filed charges against former two-time gubernatorial candidate Eliot Cutler, who is accused of possessing “thousands of videos” of child pornography. State Police raided Cutler’s homes in Brooklin and Portland in March after getting a tip from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.

Juskewitch, 73, earned his law degree from the University of Maine in 1976. He was a prosecutor in Cumberland County and worked as deputy district attorney in Hancock and Washington counties.

“I’m the better candidate because of experience, demeanor, motivation and energy,” he said.

Juskewitch has run six previous times, including once as a Democrat, twice as an independent and three times as a Republican. A Dedham resident, he emphasized his years of experience as a prosecutor and trial attorney. When it comes to the opioid crisis, he described drug abuse “as a disease” but said “drug dealing is a war.”