Maine at large

[Admin Twaddleford]

2 electoral college votes

[thinwhiteduke]

Maine :
Biden 53% (+11)
Trump 42%


PPP.

[Rural Radical]

Jul 6, 2020 13:10:14 GMT thinwhiteduke said:

Maine :
Biden 53% (+11)
Trump 42%


PPP.

I’m guessing that Biden would be ahead in the 2nd district on these numbers?

[curiousliberal]

Jul 6, 2020 18:51:16 GMT Rural Radical said:

Jul 6, 2020 13:10:14 GMT thinwhiteduke said:

Maine :
Biden 53% (+11)
Trump 42%


PPP.

I’m guessing that Biden would be ahead in the 2nd district on these numbers?

Unclear, but probably just missed on UNS (it went for Trump by about 10% while the state as a whole backed HRC by 3%). When factoring out undecideds on a fifty-fifty basis, the margin is a point shy of a ten percent shift statewide. 

However, I do expect it snap back much more strongly than midwestern rural areas because of what happened there in 2018 and, if RCV is implemented, I think it'll flip. 

[curiousliberal]

In a blow to the state's Republican Party, it's emerged that they didn't have enough valid signatures for their veto referendum on RCV. It will be used at the presidential level this November.

[peterl]

I do not get the point in preference voting for US President. Would anyone actually vote 1. Trump 2. Biden, or vice versa?

[curiousliberal]

Jul 15, 2020 22:31:53 GMT peterl said:

I do not get the point in preference voting for US President. Would anyone actually vote 1. Trump 2. Biden, or vice versa?

No, but Maine has a long tradition of fairly strong independent candidacies and third parties tend to do a bit better there.

[YL]

Jul 15, 2020 22:31:53 GMT peterl said:

I do not get the point in preference voting for US President. Would anyone actually vote 1. Trump 2. Biden, or vice versa?

1. Nader 2. Gore
1. Johnson 2. Clinton

[Richard Allen]

Jul 15, 2020 22:32:44 GMT curiousliberal said:

Jul 15, 2020 22:31:53 GMT peterl said:

I do not get the point in preference voting for US President. Would anyone actually vote 1. Trump 2. Biden, or vice versa?

No, but Maine has a long tradition of fairly strong independent candidacies and third parties tend to do a bit better there.

Doesn't look like being a factor this year. At one point it looked like there would be a libertarian and multiple independents in the Senate race but it has ended up with just two independents (one is actually a green in all but name). If they take a 2-3 points between them that will probably be it. Meanwhile both House races are straight Rep v Dem contests.

[thinwhiteduke]

Maine:
Biden 54% 
Trump 40%


MEsen:
Gideon (D) 48%
Collins (R-inc) 47%

FabrizioWard/HartSurveys/AARP, LV, 8/30-9/5

[Richard Allen]

Sept 10, 2020 14:53:11 GMT thinwhiteduke said:

Maine:
Biden 54% 
Trump 40%


MEsen:
Gideon (D) 48%
Collins (R-inc) 47%

FabrizioWard/HartSurveys/AARP, LV, 8/30-9/5

Despite Gideon having led in every public poll I have still kept this as a toss up in my mental list. Collins might have become a hate figure for Democrats but she still has enough cross over support that she might just sneak through for a fifth term. She got an interesting endorsement this week from "lifelong Democrat" Joe Lieberman.

[curiousliberal]

Sept 10, 2020 19:51:29 GMT Richard Allen said:

Sept 10, 2020 14:53:11 GMT thinwhiteduke said:

Maine:
Biden 54% 
Trump 40%


MEsen:
Gideon (D) 48%
Collins (R-inc) 47%

FabrizioWard/HartSurveys/AARP, LV, 8/30-9/5

Despite Gideon having led in every public poll I have still kept this as a toss up in my mental list. Collins might have become a hate figure for Democrats but she still has enough cross over support that she might just sneak through for a fifth term. She got an interesting endorsement this week from "lifelong Democrat" Joe Lieberman.

Lieberman is very old news at this point and this same polls has Biden leading by 4% and Jared Golden leading by 13% in ME-02. These results are not impossible, but the sample looks a little bit odd (I would not expect Biden to do so well in ME-02 before RCV comes into play - at least, not in a Gideon+1% sample).

[conservativeestimate]

It would be a shame if Collins loses. Senate elections seem to have boiled down to how a nominee voted or would have voted on SC judges, which is a shame as most of the job of being a Senator isn't voting on SCOTUS nominees.

A long history of moderate Republicans including Senators Lincoln Chafee, Jim Jeffords, Arlen Specter, Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins this century that might come to an end in November. I for one hope it doesn't happen. Maybe I'm being nostalgic for an era that never really existed...

[Richard Allen]

Sept 26, 2020 17:40:30 GMT conservativeestimate said:

It would be a shame if Collins loses. Senate elections seem to have boiled down to how a nominee voted or would have voted, which is a shame as most of the job of being a Senator isn't voting on SCOTUS nominees.

A long history of moderate Republicans including Senators Lincoln Chafee, Jim Jeffords, Arlen Specter, Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins this century that might come to an end in November. I for one hope it doesn't happen. Maybe I'm being nostalgic for an era that never really existed...

It most certainly existed and still does at state level. Gov Phil Scott will cruise to re-election in Vermont in just 5 weeks time, ditto Governor Chris Sununu in New Hampshire*. In Massachusetts Gov Charlie Baker is extremely popular and if he wants a third term in 2022 will almost certainly get it.

* In the event that Biden wins the Presidency Sununu will likely challenge Senator Maggie Hassan in 2022 in what will be one of the GOP's few pick up opportunities.

As for Collins, it is a shame but in the Trump era she has been in a terrible bind. There is no way she could have survived a closed GOP primary had she distanced herself anymore than she did.

[Khunanup]

Sept 27, 2020 10:14:32 GMT Richard Allen said:

Sept 26, 2020 17:40:30 GMT conservativeestimate said:

It would be a shame if Collins loses. Senate elections seem to have boiled down to how a nominee voted or would have voted, which is a shame as most of the job of being a Senator isn't voting on SCOTUS nominees.

A long history of moderate Republicans including Senators Lincoln Chafee, Jim Jeffords, Arlen Specter, Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins this century that might come to an end in November. I for one hope it doesn't happen. Maybe I'm being nostalgic for an era that never really existed...

It most certainly existed and still does at state level. Gov Phil Scott will cruise to re-election in Vermont in just 5 weeks time, ditto Governor Chris Sununu in New Hampshire*. In Massachusetts Gov Charlie Baker is extremely popular and if he wants a third term in 2022 will almost certainly get it.

* In the event that Biden wins the Presidency Sununu will likely challenge Senator Maggie Hassan in 2022 in what will be one of the GOP's few pick up opportunities.

As for Collins, it is a shame but in the Trump era she has been in a terrible bind. There is no way she could have survived a closed GOP primary had she distanced herself anymore than she did.

And notably those north eastern Rep governors are pretty indistinguishable from moderate democrats doing the same job in say the south or the mid west.

This is the problem with an entirely binary party system which isn't actually a party system, whereby moderates align themselves with what they're definitely not in different parts of the country but have nothing necessarily really in common with their 'party' colleagues from elsewhere in the country.

NB, of course not all electable Reps in the north east or Dems in the south are moderates as Paul LePage & Dougy Jones go to show.

[CatholicLeft]

Sept 27, 2020 11:02:58 GMT Khunanup said:

Sept 27, 2020 10:14:32 GMT Richard Allen said:

It most certainly existed and still does at state level. Gov Phil Scott will cruise to re-election in Vermont in just 5 weeks time, ditto Governor Chris Sununu in New Hampshire*. In Massachusetts Gov Charlie Baker is extremely popular and if he wants a third term in 2022 will almost certainly get it.

* In the event that Biden wins the Presidency Sununu will likely challenge Senator Maggie Hassan in 2022 in what will be one of the GOP's few pick up opportunities.

As for Collins, it is a shame but in the Trump era she has been in a terrible bind. There is no way she could have survived a closed GOP primary had she distanced herself anymore than she did.

And notably those north eastern Rep governors are pretty indistinguishable from moderate democrats doing the same job in say the south or the mid west.

This is the problem with an entirely binary party system which isn't actually a party system, whereby moderates align themselves with what they're definitely not in different parts of the country but have nothing necessarily really in common with their 'party' colleagues from elsewhere in the country.

NB, of course not all electable Reps in the north east or Dems in the south are moderates as Paul LePage & Dougy Jones go to show.

By Democrat standards, Doug Jones is definitely a moderate, not much different from former Senator Landrieu of Louisiana. He has voted with President Trump 35% of the time as of this month. Rated as one of the 3 most moderate Democratic senators.

[curiousliberal]

Sept 27, 2020 10:14:32 GMT Richard Allen said:

Sept 26, 2020 17:40:30 GMT conservativeestimate said:

It would be a shame if Collins loses. Senate elections seem to have boiled down to how a nominee voted or would have voted, which is a shame as most of the job of being a Senator isn't voting on SCOTUS nominees.

A long history of moderate Republicans including Senators Lincoln Chafee, Jim Jeffords, Arlen Specter, Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins this century that might come to an end in November. I for one hope it doesn't happen. Maybe I'm being nostalgic for an era that never really existed...

As for Collins, it is a shame but in the Trump era she has been in a terrible bind. There is no way she could have survived a closed GOP primary had she distanced herself anymore than she did.

I'd disagree on that - she could probably have afforded to take a few more significant votes against her party, especially where her caucus' economic orthodoxy differed from Trump's preferences. In the end, she didn't even get a primary challenger (not counting the write-in who barely registered on the map). Even if Collins had lost her primary, Maine's ranked choice voting would have allowed her to proceed to the General Election and potentially win off the back of a personal brand which hadn't yet been destroyed.

[Richard Allen]

Sept 27, 2020 16:53:25 GMT curiousliberal said:

Sept 27, 2020 10:14:32 GMT Richard Allen said:

As for Collins, it is a shame but in the Trump era she has been in a terrible bind. There is no way she could have survived a closed GOP primary had she distanced herself anymore than she did.

I'd disagree on that - she could probably have afforded to take a few more significant votes against her party, especially where her caucus' economic orthodoxy differed from Trump's preferences. In the end, she didn't even get a primary challenger (not counting the write-in who barely registered on the map). Even if Collins had lost her primary, Maine's ranked choice voting would have allowed her to proceed to the General Election and potentially win off the back of a personal brand which hadn't yet been destroyed.

I really don't think a few dissenting votes on economic policy would have made any difference. The only ones that would have gotten any attention were Kavanaugh and impeachment and either of those would have resulted in a very strong primary challenge.

And she couldn't have proceeded to the General after losing the primary as the filing deadline for Independent candidates was 18 days before the primary.

[conservativeestimate]

Sept 27, 2020 16:53:25 GMT curiousliberal said:

Sept 27, 2020 10:14:32 GMT Richard Allen said:

As for Collins, it is a shame but in the Trump era she has been in a terrible bind. There is no way she could have survived a closed GOP primary had she distanced herself anymore than she did.

I'd disagree on that - she could probably have afforded to take a few more significant votes against her party, especially where her caucus' economic orthodoxy differed from Trump's preferences. In the end, she didn't even get a primary challenger (not counting the write-in who barely registered on the map). Even if Collins had lost her primary, Maine's ranked choice voting would have allowed her to proceed to the General Election and potentially win off the back of a personal brand which hadn't yet been destroyed.

Aren't you confusing the top two jungle primary used in California with Ranked Choice Voting? I don't think Maine has enough Republicans for Collins to have advanced to the general if she'd taken second place in the GOP primary.

I don't believe Paul LePage could have toppled Collins in the primary. He's a known quantity and only won in 2010 and 2014 with pluralities of c40% - he's why Maine has RCV.

[Richard Allen]

Sept 27, 2020 17:26:18 GMT conservativeestimate said:

I don't believe Paul LePage could have toppled Collins in the primary. He's a known quantity and only won in 2010 and 2014 with pluralities of c40% - he's why Maine has RCV.

In a closed GOP primary he would have slaughtered her. A PPP poll last October had him winning 63-29 but fortunately for her he had no real interest in running for The Senate, and probably knew he would lose the general, and only used it as a threat to ensure that she voted to confirm Kavanaugh.