Dem
47
GOP
53
As long as we are on the subject of election results, let's turn our attention (back) to Maine for a moment. Recall that the good people of Maine use ranked choice voting, such that not all of the results were known when the state held its primaries a couple of weeks ago. The picture is clear now, however.
As a reminder, Rep. Jared Golden (D-ME) is retiring from ME-02, a very rural district in the north of the state. It is the largest district by area east of the Mississippi. Even though Maine is a blue state, ME-02 is R+4. Holding such a red, rural district will be tough for the Democrats, even under favorable conditions.
The Republican candidate in ME-02 has been known for months, as former governor (and devoted Trumper) Paul LePage (R) was unopposed. And now, the Democrat is known, as State Auditor Matt Dunlap won the primary, 52.5% to 47.5% for second-place finisher Joseph M. Baldacci. Baldacci actually led 31.6% to 29.2% after the first round of voting, so Dunlap was obviously the more commonly preferred alternative for the supporters of the third- and fourth-place candidates.
Dunlap is a progressive and was the Maine co-chair of the 2016 campaign of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT). He has been endorsed by Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA), whose Silicon Valley district is 2,800 miles from ME-02. The three candidates that Dunlap beat, including Baldacci, who had the backing of the DCCC, are all more moderate. For a long time, progressives have said that if rural voters would only see what progressives want to do for them, they would win. Now we will get a good test of that. Dunlap's top five priorities are:
Note that none of these are specifically aimed at farmers, lumberjacks, lobsterjacks or oysterjacks (or jills). Dunlap appears to have dusted off Bernie's campaign platform and is running it. House races are often more local. And in this case, LePage is far better known than Dunlap. The Democrats may lose a potentially winnable seat here.
That said, while the DCCC may be disappointed in the voters' choice, they are going to do whatever they can to help him out, because the blue team needs to hold this seat. It helps that LePage, while well-known, is also somewhat notorious, with a number of scandals and impolitic moments in his past. There haven't been any recent polls, but there should be shortly now that the nominees are known. For what it's worth, the now-defeated Baldacci campaign commissioned a poll in late May, and it had Baldacci beating LePage by 8 points, 49% to 41%.
Having a lefty candidate in a not-so-lefty district is not the only thing in Maine that has Democrats worried, however. Let's take a look at the last seven polls of this year's U.S. Senate race between Graham Platner and Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME):
| Pollster | Date | Platner (D) | Collins (R) | Net |
| Pan Atlantic SMS Group | May 8-18 | 48% | 41% | Platner +7% |
| University of New Hampshire | May 21-25 | 51% | 42% | Platner +9% |
| UMass Lowell/Center for Public Opinion/YouGov | May 13-26 | 48% | 43% | Platner +5% |
| NYT runs story about Platner's sexting (May 30) | ||||
| PPP | June 2-3 | 49% | 45% | Platner +4% |
| NYT runs story about Platner's former girlfriends (June 5) | ||||
| Tavern Research | June 5-8 | 51% | 49% | Platner +2% |
| Quantus Insights | June 9-11 | 46% | 45% | Platner +1% |
| Wick | June 11-13 | 48% | 45% | Platner +3% |
The trendline couldn't be clearer. Platner's still in the lead, but barely, and he's clearly been hurt by the two recent scandals. Oh, and he's up against an opponent who tends to overperform her polls. The Democrats and their candidate will hope he can bounce back, but at the moment, Platner clearly has work to do. (V & Z)