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ME-Gov: Mitchell Trails LePage by 14 Points

by: James L.

Wed Sep 08, 2010 at 6:32 PM EDT


Public Policy Polling (9/2-6, likely voters, no trend lines):

Libby Mitchell (D): 29
Paul LePage (R): 43
Eliot Cutler (I): 11
Shawn Moody (I): 5
Kevin Scott (I): 1
Undecided: 12
(MoE: ±2.6%)

Good grief:

The thing drivings the GOP poll advantage in Maine are the same we're seeing everywhere: a unified Republican base, a lack of interest from Democratic voters, a strong GOP lean with independents, and the specter of an unpopular Democratic President and Governor hanging over the heads of the party's candidates.

Stop me if you've heard this one before:

The same depressed Democratic interest that helped sink the party in the Massachusetts Senate election, as well as last fall's races for Governor in New Jersey and Virginia, is showing itself in Maine. We find those likely to vote in the state supported Barack Obama by a 7 point margin in 2008, in contrast to his actual 17 point victory there. That enthusiasm gap contributes a lot to the margin of LePage's lead but make no mistake- with him winning 76% of McCain voters and Mitchell at only 52% with Obama's he'd be in the lead even if the electorate looked the same as in 2008.

UPDATE: The DGA is up with a TV spot hitting LePage on his environmental protection policies (or lack thereof).
James L. :: ME-Gov: Mitchell Trails LePage by 14 Points
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ME-Gov: Mitchell Trails LePage by 14 Points | 37 comments
Only
in a year like this can a teabagger like Paul LePage be winning. Shame, there was this girl I liked last year who's going to the College of Atlantic up in that state. She's very liberal and a big environmentalist as well. Feeling sorry for her that she'll probably have a teabagger who wants to dismantle environmental protections as her governor for the next 4 years.

The DGA and the RGA ain't sitting on their butts here either. Their jumping straight into the action.



19, Male, Independent, CA-12

PPP
says congressional results (ME-01, ME-02) out tomorrow.

28, Liberal Democrat, CA-26
LePage may be the firewall preventing 6 Democratic governors in New England
I haven't done the research, but I'm almost positive that that has never been the case before in what was once the most Republican area of the country. Despite the imbalance in the House (22-0) and Senate (8-4) delegations, Republicans and Democrats currently control 3 governorships each in the region. Of the three Republican seats, RI's a goner and CT looks like its heading that way, while Vermont looks like a tossup. For the Democratic seats, NH is a likely hold and Deval Patrick has yet to trail in a poll in MA. That leaves Maine as the best opportunity for the GOP to hold a New England governorship.

LePage just looks like a classic Mainer, doesn't he?

20, CD MA-03/NH-01/MA-08

Rasmussen's the only one that's polled Vermont
He had Dubie over Shumlin by a 55-36 margin. I would imagine that's closed some, since the primary is over, but I still would imagine Dubie is the favorite.
[ Parent ]
Im glad you brought this up
Even in 2010, we're still moving towards a 100% Democratic New England.
[ Parent ]
Actually that is not the case
Right now it looks like it will be 4 to 2 as the Vermont Dems are blowing it and the Republicans seem to have a good candidate in Maine.  Massachusetts is still in play too.

23, male, center-right cynical Republican, PA-7
[ Parent ]
not sure if VT dems are really blowing it...
it's just a combination of a lot of factors.  A bad year to run as a dem, a state that's left, but not loyal to partisan identities, a 5 way, late primary, a split decision with the winner getting only 25%, a recount, a good, popular republican, a democrat who (based off of the rassy polling and word of mouth) isn't that popular and is seen as a bit slimy, there hill is just a lot steeper than other new england states right now.  

Top ten signs you're an SSPer #1: your favorite song is "Panic At Tedisco" and no one understands what you mean.
[ Parent ]
Of course they blew it. They nominated Shumlin.
Markowitz had a shot. Maybe Racine. Shumlin doesn't.

Leave it to VT Dems to always blow a competitive race.  

[ Parent ]
with baldacci, obama and the dems so unpopular
it might be a good idea to watch cutler.  maine doesn't have any problem with electing a left wing governor and what the dems need now is someone with the same policies, but better packaging.  

Top ten signs you're an SSPer #1: your favorite song is "Panic At Tedisco" and no one understands what you mean.
Congressional polling
It will be really enlightening to see what PPP's congressional polls say tomorrow.  

23, male, center-right cynical Republican, PA-7
[ Parent ]
yes, especially michauld
I went to school in the 2nd district for a year, it's very blue collar.  michauld seems like a good fit, but a republican could win in a bad year.  also, I'm hoping they went with my suggestion to see how snowe would fare against stephen king in 2012 (with king as both a dem and an indy).

Top ten signs you're an SSPer #1: your favorite song is "Panic At Tedisco" and no one understands what you mean.
[ Parent ]
Both seats would be interesting
While ME-1 is D+8, Chellie Pingree won in 2008 by less than 10 points when Obama won the state as a whole by a larger margin.  I am curious if we have seen a larger collapse of support in ME-1 or ME-2.

23, male, center-right cynical Republican, PA-7
[ Parent ]
my money's
on me-2.  me-1 is too metropolitian (for northern NE) to have a bottoming out of dem support.  i suspect that pingree's bad showing was more about it being an open race than anything else.  

Top ten signs you're an SSPer #1: your favorite song is "Panic At Tedisco" and no one understands what you mean.
[ Parent ]
i mean
too metropolitan to have a MASSIVE bottoming out of support.

Top ten signs you're an SSPer #1: your favorite song is "Panic At Tedisco" and no one understands what you mean.
[ Parent ]
I agree
I suspect that is the case, but we never know this cycle.

23, male, center-right cynical Republican, PA-7
[ Parent ]
I think the opposite
I think Michaud is too strong an incumbent for a republican to win, even this year.  Pingree on the other hand, only won by 10% in 2008 when Obama carried the district by more than 20.  That's a major, huge underperformance, and though she's an incumbent now, I have a feeling that this race could be competitive unless the democratic base that didn't care much for her 2 years ago has solidified around her more this time.

23, Male, Democrat, OH-13
[ Parent ]
King
is a hard core dem I thought. I would donate to him in a heartbeat. He is one of my favorite authors.  

Proud member of the Indiana Democratic Party from IN-9.  
[ Parent ]
mine too
my favorite books are the stand and the dark tower series.  he's surprisingly active in the democratic party.  among other people, he donated to shumlin in VT.

Top ten signs you're an SSPer #1: your favorite song is "Panic At Tedisco" and no one understands what you mean.
[ Parent ]
Yes Stephen King is, in fact, a hard core Democrat. (nm)
nm

43, male, Indian-American, Democrat, VA-10
[ Parent ]
My guess is they're both ahead, but under 50.
Say, Pingree up 41-29, and Michaud 44-27, or something like that.
[ Parent ]
King
If people had fun reading naughty bits from Jim Webb's books on the radio in 2006, they'd just be able to go to town on King's!  I can't imagine him wanting to run, though, and no sure how that whole substance abuse phase would go over.  I'm not liberal, but I think I'd actually vote for him, though.  The speeches he'd give would be the highlight of C-Span.

43 - Male - GOP/Libertarian - FL 22
[ Parent ]
2010
Don't worry guys, there is nothing to see here, clearly we are going to win this race and clean up so many others.

But seriously, this is beyond sad.  A fringe far right winger like LePage winning in basically a walk?  I shudder to think what these right wingers are going to do in the next 2 years.

29/D/Male/NY-01

Tekzilla!
There are two forces working against the Democrats here:

1) LePage comes off as the typical small town New England mayor type.  If the Republicans ran a small town New England mayor for President, I could see most of New England going Republican just because for some reason New Englanders eat that stuff up.

2)  Those negatives are driving the Democrats down to say the least.

23, male, center-right cynical Republican, PA-7

[ Parent ]
ME
I could maybe see a Bill Binnie or Scott Brown having that appeal, but not LePage, he comes off as far right to me imo.

29/D/Male/NY-01
[ Parent ]
He's essentially the right-wing
teabagger who helped lead the drive to turn ME's Republican Party platform into a radically conservative one this year. He's probably the worst possible fit possible for a moderate state like Maine and that makes it really surprising to me that he is ahead. Probably a huge gift for ME Democrats though, because I feel he will likely destroy the Republican party and there and drive people to the Democrats more consistently.  
[ Parent ]
LePage
is the only one candidate playing on right-of-center field. And this field in Maine is about 40% of electorate (after all McCain got about 40% here too). Mitchell is very liberal, Cutler - left-of-center and social liberal, so results are really not surprising. Especially in a year when right is very organized and determined.

He won the primary similar way: he was by far a leader of 3 conservative candidates and got 37%, while 3 moderate candidates got 17, 15 and 13...

The House races may be intersting too: Michaud is stronger incumbent, but has more serious (IMHO) opponent, while Pingree is extremely liberal and rather underperformer (55% in very good 2008 against candiddate who couldn't campaign in person until June or July). But her opponent (Dave Scontras) is very conservative and rather bad fit for this more liberal district.

[ Parent ]
We've gone over this
her 2008 opponent couldn't campaign because he was fighting in Iraq, he was veteran, that is good optics period, and he was also a sitting State Senator who was well funded, and on top of that Pingree had to fight her way out of a divisive Democratic primary. It's not like the result of the General Election was a surprise. I expected it to be moderately close.  
[ Parent ]
Yes.
Still, if HE would run againg this year, i would bet on him. Luckily for Democrats present Republican candidate (Scontras) is not of the same quality, so Pingree will possibly win, but not convincigly...
[ Parent ]
Dean Scontras, not Dave


21, dude, RI-01 (registered) IL-01 (college)
please help Japan. click "donate funds" in upper right and then "Japan Earthquake and Pacific Tsunami." http://www.redcross.org/
[ Parent ]
Most of New England?
if by which you mean Maine and New Hampshire, sure...

21, dude, RI-01 (registered) IL-01 (college)
please help Japan. click "donate funds" in upper right and then "Japan Earthquake and Pacific Tsunami." http://www.redcross.org/
[ Parent ]
Olympia Snowe
What I want to know is what a hypothetical LePage victory would have on Olympia Snowe's election prospects in 2012.  I suspect that a Governor LePage would motivate the Tea Party element in Maine to launch primary challenge that could easily find national financing.  

20, Ind, PA-14
shocked by PPP sometimes

Reading their comments, it is obvious what they dislike Obama.
???
Where do you get that from?  
[ Parent ]
Check the comments here.
http://publicpolicypolling.blo...

My blog
Twitter
Scribd
28, New Democrat, Female, TX-03 (hometown CA-26)
[ Parent ]
That doesn't show they dislike Obama. They're just reading their own poll results, nothing more. Really...
...these guys are Democrats at PPP, they work for Democratic clients, and they've never said a bad word about Obama.

I have 5 Obama stickers on my car, I'm still a loyal supporter to the bone and strongly approve of him, and for all that I don't hesitate for a second to acknowledge his job approvals are underwater and today he's a liability in many more places than he's an asset.  That's because we're in the longest recession and slowest recovery of my lifetime, and because Obama's great failing as President has been extremely poor communications.  But whatever the reasons, the fact is he's not a help for the midterms.  He can reduce his liability by at least messaging better and with more discipline these last couple months, but that's about it.

PPP's greatest error in their analysis is that they rely too deeply on their own polls for everything they believe about voters and elections.  They constantly judge an entire huge forest from just the one tree of PPP polling.  That's a failing in their analysis, but it's not at all anti-Obama.

43, male, Indian-American, Democrat, VA-10

[ Parent ]
PPP is just part of the "reality-based community"
As for the forest and trees, they're stat geeks. By definition, stat geeks look at every tree in detail.

Somehow I don't think DK would have picked them if they were "anti-Obama".

[ Parent ]
I totally agree with your analysis DCCyclone but I'm actually skeptical of this PPP poll
I just don't believe that Obama's underwater in Maine, it's one of those states that didn't get hit nearly as hard by the poor economy as a lot of other places (I think unemployment in the state is something around 8.5%, in the population center of the Portland area, it's more like 6%).

Of course, the housing market wasn't exactly kind to it either, my parents are moving to Maine next year, and just how cheap a lot of the homes are in Maine is astounding, they can find a house on par with their home in Albuquerque for like 100K less than here, it's crazy.

Politics and Other Random Topics

24, Male, Democrat, NM-01, Chairman of the Atheist Caucus, and Majority Leader of the "Going to Hell" caucus!

[ Parent ]
ME-Gov: Mitchell Trails LePage by 14 Points | 37 comments

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