Who won your county?

[Kevinstat]

Kerry won Kennebec County by 8.8%.  Like Montgomery County, OH and presumably Erc's home county (correct me if I'm wrong Erc, or somebody who knows where Erc lives), Kennebec County has been carried by the Democratic nominee in every Presidential election from 1992 on.  My county has swung and "trended" (as compared to the changing national margin) Republican since 1996.  Kennebec County has trended Republican relative to the changing margin in Maine as well from either 1996 or 2000 to 2004.  Bill Clinton led Bob Dole in Kennebec County by 26.7% in 1996, compared 20.9% in Maine and 8.5% nationally.  In 2000, Gore carried Kennebec County by 12.3%, compared to 5.1% in Maine and an 0.5% popular vote margin nationwide.  In 2004, however, Kerry's 8.8% margin in Kennebec County was actually less than his 9.0% margin statewide.  Bush's nationwide popular vote margin was 2.5%.  Kennebec County swung 3.7% toward the GOP from 1996 to 2000, and trended about 0.5% Republican during that period as compared to the nation and 7.4% Republican compared to Maine as a whole.  That swing and those trends surprised me, but are somewhat in line with the (albeit also surprising) increased Catholic-Protestant divide in Maine (with Kerry doing significantly better among Catholics than Gore in 2000 but significantly worse among Protestants).

Kennebec County, which contains Maine's state capitol of Augusta, may be key in the 2006 Gubernatorial race.  Baldacci carried it by 6.7% in 2002 (interestingly losing the portion of the county then in the Second Congressional District which contained all the other counties he carried - that was part of the reason I thought a "reverse split" of Maine's electoral votes was possible in 2004, although I thought it was very unlikely) compared to 5.7% statewide.  Since then, however, he has antagonized people in certain parts of the Second District by opposing a casino in Washington County (even with a referendum provision, although I forget whether that referendum was statewide or local) and by generally gaining the impression (whether warrented or not) of folks in that area as being a tax and spend liberal (which is kind of funny because he seems more resistant to the left than he was when he was in Congress representing the Second District where he was always reelected overwhelmingly).  The likely Republican nominee is from Franklin County and will almost certainly lose Cumberland County (unless he were to win overwhelmingly, which I doubt) and could easily lose a couple of the other four coastal counties Republian nominee Peter Cianchette carried in 2002, but if he could carry a county or two of those counties, not get blown out of the water in the others and make sweeping gains in the Second District, he would likely win the election.  If Woodcock (yes we could have a Governor Woodcock come 2007) makes big gains in the Second District but loses big in Cumberland County and loses a few of the other counties Cianchette won in 2002, whether or not Woodcock gains ground in Kennebec County could be the deciding factor in the race.  We'll see what happens.

Sincerely,

Kevin Lamoreau

Edited to change an incorrect PA to OH above.  John Kerry did win Montgomery County, PA, but Joe Republic was, I believe, talking about the one in Ohio that includes the city Dayton (where an aunt and uncle of mine lived for a few years 10+ years back, btw.)