Rasmussen Maine: Obama by 4

[Rowan]

ME
Obama 50%
McCain 46%

http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/election_20082/2008_presidential_election/maine/election_2008_maine_presidential_election

[Alcon]

Ugh.

Where the hell is Mason-Dixon?

[Sam Spade]

Probably an outlier.  We'll see.

And Alcon, I've never seen an M-D poll of Maine. 

[Lief 🗽]

Er... what?

[Sam Spade]

Poll entered here:

https://uselectionatlas.org/POLLS/PRESIDENT/2008/pollsa.php?action=indpoll&id=2320080917016

[Rowan]

Hypothetically speaking, with a margin like this, would McCain have a chance to pick up one of the CD's?

[Sam Spade]

Hypothetically speaking, with a margin like this, would McCain have a chance to pick up one of the CD's?

A shot?  Probably.

[Zarn]

Rasmussen had a couple of whacked out state polling in the last few days.

[Dan the Roman]

The CDs are far closer together than they were in 2000. Redistricting added Waterville to the second district, and removed some Republican towns.

Bush lost the 2nd CD 51-46 in 2004, while losing the state 54-45. Adjusting a uniform swing, that would give a result of 47-47 in the second district.

That said, the swing is unlikely to be uniform. The 2nd district is far more Catholic, Blue Collar, and Rural than the 1st and it has native daughter Susan Collins on the top of the Ballot. In a four point race, McCain probably leads by 2 points or so.

Again though, as I noted on another thread with New Hampshire, I would be wary of polls here, even seemingly accurate ones. Maine is another one of those New England states that it is Democratic as much do to the differential in organization between the parties as to do with partisan identification. Bush ran a brilliant effort in Maine in 2004(I know because I worked on it).He had Randy Bumps, formerly RNC North_East Director, running it, and Bush visited twice, Laura visited once, and Andy Card, Zell Miller, John McCain, and Rudy Giuliani all stumped here. There were also 7000 volunteers recruited. So Bush's numbers in 2004 are probably not a baseline, especially with the campaign McCain is running here.

He has Dwayne Bickford, a former party ED with questionable reputation heading up his effort, and it is mostly staffed by the same people who ran the disastrous House GOP campaign in 2006 where they lost 13 seats(while the Senate GOP gained 1). They have less than 400 volunteers signed up and six full time staff. McCain has made one visit, and no other surrogates are campaigning unless you count Collins.

Collins might normally help, but her people are not really id'ing voters by Presidential preferences and are running a disconnected and lazy effort, which doesn't matter because they will win anyway.

[Associate Justice PiT]

     I honestly doubt that ME is that close. Does make me wonder why it would happen though.

[auburntiger]

Well if we were to lose Colorado, but pick up an EV in Maine + New Hampshire = 270! I seriously doubt it though. McCain is probably at best down 8-9 points.

[War on Want]

Outlier

[agcatter]

Outlier to be sure.  No way it is this close.  Obama should win this state comfortably by 10 - 12 points.  Rasmussen has indeed had some weird looking state polls of late.  This is one of the weirdest.

[Eraserhead]

Obama is moving up in the national polls but moving downward in Maine? Highly unlikely.

[Kevinstat]

He has Dwayne Bickford, a former party ED with questionable reputation heading up his effort, and it is mostly staffed by the same people who ran the disastrous House GOP campaign in 2006 where they lost 13 seats(while the Senate GOP gained 1).

The House Republicans only ended up losing 12 seats in that election (the Democrats gained 14 as the combined number of Independents and Green Independents went from 4 (3I, two of whom were elected as Ds in 2004 + 1G) to 2 (2I)) after an apparent Democratic defeat of a Republican incumbent on election night was reversed in a recount.  The Democrat didn't conceed at first because more votes were cast in that district than voters from that district who voted and the difference was greater than the Republican's margin.  Voters from the other district in that town (Standish, a rapidly growing "exurb" - politically it's like one anyway - west of Portland) had probably voted in that district which contained the majority of the town (that's not unheard of in Maine as the House districts are small enough that some larger 1-precinct towns without the staffing levels of cities like Portland have to be split among them) and the Democrat was provisionally seated as the apparent winner on election night and served for the one-day "session" (part of the First Regular Session, but a month before the session reconvenes) in December when the presiding officers, Secretary/Clerk, Assistant Secretary/Clerk, Constitutional Officers (AG, Sec. of State, State Treasurer and the State Auditor although the last one is technically not a constitutional office but is chosen by joint ballot of the Legislature like the others) were chosen and the joint rules (and presumably the rules for each chamber) for the session were adopted.  The Democrat conceded before the session resumed to avoid the cost of a special election.  The Democrats later gained two Republican seats in special elections.  There was a House race in Aroostook County where the opposite difference (again greater than the margin, this time with the Democratic challenger in the lead) between the number of voters in Presque Isle from that district who voted and the number of ballots cast with that district's candidates on the ballot, so voters who should have been given ballots with that district on the ballot for that district probably were given and cast ballots for voters in the other one (the tendency seems to be voters from the "remainder" of a municipality with 1 House district plus part of another receiving and casting ballots for the district entirely in that municipality; that had happened in a disputed race in 2000 a district incuding the remainder of Old Town back when it had one).  In the Aroostook County case the Democrat led on election night and was provisionally sworn in in December and permanently sworn in January I think after the Republican incumbent conceded.  Before either apparent loser in the recounts had conceded (the recount winner's margin in both cases was greater than the number of disputed ballots - there was no way of knowing which ballots were cast in the wrong district and in Presque Isle the wrong ballots cast wouldn't have even had the candidates disputing the outcome on the ballot), the Democratic chair of the House Standing Committee on Elections, in a press release that I can no longer find online, tried to pressure the Republican incumbent in the Aroostook County district while arguing that the situation in the Standish district was more complicated, which I can kind of understand as the Presque Isle voters could have noticed they were given the wrong ballots and spoken up and disenfranchised themselves in their district by not doing so but the voters in the Standish remainder who voted in the wrong district argueably disenfranshised every voter who correctly voted in the main Standish district (the races in the district entirely in Presque Isle was a Democratic landslide, and the one in the district including the remainder of Standish was a 7.4% Republican win where no recount was requested).  There was also a municipal election in Presque Isle which the Democrats argued could explain the discrepency in a way that would not justify a re-vote.  Interestingly, the Republican incumbent from Standish who was eventually re-seated has suspended his campaign (although it was too late for him to withdraw his name from the ballot) and the Democratic challenger who served provisionally from December 2006 until early January 2007 I think is likely to be elected.  If he serves three terms it will be interesting to see whether Maine's term limits law, which is written in such a way that partial terms are counted as full terms, is barred from serving a fourth consecutive "real" term in 2014.  There is a Republican State Representative in the same boat one term ahead of him, having been provisionally seated in 2004 before conceeding and being elected in 2006.  I've heard she is likely to run for the State Senate in 2010 though so the issue might not come up with her.

Speaking of the Senate, the Republicans did gain a seat in the Senate in 2006, but they won the same number of seats (17) that they had won in 2004 (and 2000 and 2002 as well).  A Republican Senator switched parties in 2004 less than two months after being reelected.  He was unopposed for the Democratic nomination in 2006 defeated for reelection by a Republican while each party gained an open seat off the other (the Republican open seat gain was in my district and that could be a sleeper race (in the sports sense of a sleeper team that could exceed expectations) this year.

Besides those errors, your point about the Republican State House campaign in Maine in 2006 being disastorous (especially when compared to moderately sucessful State Senate GOP campaign) is valid.  I hadn't heard that the folks who ran the House GOP campaign in 2006 were heavily involved in McCain's Maine campaign, but that is good news for Obama.