Is Maine back to being a Safe D state on the presidential level?
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  Is Maine back to being a Safe D state on the presidential level?
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Author Topic: Is Maine back to being a Safe D state on the presidential level?  (Read 997 times)
Catalyst138
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« on: November 20, 2020, 01:54:08 PM »

Maine definitely was scary for Democrats in 2016. After Obama had back-to-back 15-point victories in 2008 and 2012, the state suddenly swung 12 points and Hillary only won it by 3 (and Dems lost the second district for the first time since 1988). This has led to discussion about Maine being a future swing state.

However, 2020 saw a large snap back for Maine on the presidential level. Biden currently has a 10 point lead, and there are still more ballots to be counted with Biden’s lead only growing in the past few weeks. This makes Maine vote around 6 points left of the nation, on par with Virginia and reversing the heavy R trend from 2016. One interesting result is that the Second District still voted Trump by a sizable margin. This would indicate that Dems can more than make up losses there with gains in the First District, which voted for Biden by similar margins to 2008.

Is Maine on the table for future GOP presidential candidates, or is it back to being Safe Democrat?
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KaiserDave
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« Reply #1 on: November 20, 2020, 02:07:58 PM »

No definitely not.

Maine is still not trending in a Democratic direction.
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TiltsAreUnderrated
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« Reply #2 on: November 20, 2020, 02:08:36 PM »

No definitely not.

Maine is still not trending in a Democratic direction.

It just did.
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KaiserDave
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« Reply #3 on: November 20, 2020, 02:13:16 PM »

No definitely not.

Maine is still not trending in a Democratic direction.

It just did.

I see this as a temporary aberration

I was pleasantly surprised at how we did there, but over the long term I’m not very optimistic
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Catalyst138
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« Reply #4 on: November 20, 2020, 02:14:49 PM »

No definitely not.

Maine is still not trending in a Democratic direction.

On the presidential level it definitely is. It went from Hillary +3 to Biden +10 when the popular vote only shifted by 2, meaning it trended D by 5%.

This is not an insignificant amount, Georgia only trended D by 3% and Arizona by 2%. Not that the trends will necessarily continue like that, but still.
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KaiserDave
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« Reply #5 on: November 20, 2020, 02:18:08 PM »

No definitely not.

Maine is still not trending in a Democratic direction.

On the presidential level it definitely is. It went from Hillary +3 to Biden +10 when the popular vote only shifted by 2, meaning it trended D by 5%.

This is not an insignificant amount, Georgia only trended D by 3% and Arizona by 2%. Not that the trends will necessarily continue like that, but still.


I hope you’re right
But Maine is quite elastic
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kwabbit
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« Reply #6 on: November 20, 2020, 02:42:33 PM »

I doubt it returns to 2008/2012 margins, but 2016 was something of an aberration. Clinton was a terrible fit for the state and the third party vote took away from her. Long-term it should trend R however. It has all the makings of Republican state: Extremely white, rural, relatively low educational attainment. In ME-02 especially the Democrats are on borrowed time. 
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SevenEleven
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« Reply #7 on: November 20, 2020, 02:52:09 PM »

No definitely not.

Maine is still not trending in a Democratic direction.

On the presidential level it definitely is. It went from Hillary +3 to Biden +10 when the popular vote only shifted by 2, meaning it trended D by 5%.

This is not an insignificant amount, Georgia only trended D by 3% and Arizona by 2%. Not that the trends will necessarily continue like that, but still.


Two party splits are really lame in elections with high third party vote share. Trump lost about 1.5% on his 2016 total.
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MATTROSE94
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« Reply #8 on: November 21, 2020, 08:51:19 AM »

Ron DeSantis easily wins Maine in 2024 and might even hit Ronald Reagan 1984-levels there in his 2028 re-election bid.
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ajc0918
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« Reply #9 on: November 21, 2020, 12:02:53 PM »

Can Maine Dems gerrymander its congressional districts so both voted for Biden without sacrificing either seat?
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« Reply #10 on: November 21, 2020, 12:45:00 PM »

Can Maine Dems gerrymander its congressional districts so both voted for Biden without sacrificing either seat?

Sure, by moving Lewiston into district 1 and moving some coastal areas north/east of Portland into district 2. This would make both districts D-leaning.
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TDAS04
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« Reply #11 on: November 21, 2020, 02:09:12 PM »

Maine is not safe.  It's one of the most unpredictable states, if not the most unpredictable.  A lot of people thought they would dump Susan Collins, when they obviously did not.
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MT Treasurer
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« Reply #12 on: November 21, 2020, 02:48:10 PM »

Can Maine Dems gerrymander its congressional districts so both voted for Biden without sacrificing either seat?

Sure, by moving Lewiston into district 1 and moving some coastal areas north/east of Portland into district 2. This would make both districts D-leaning.

This isn’t as easy as you think. Portland City (obviously) and then South Portland/Brunswick are the bulk of Democratic strength in the First District, most of the other outlying/coastal areas are also fairly D but not as strongly D (except for Yarmouth, Falmouth, Cumberland) or not as populous. There’s no way you can add enough D areas of CD-1 into CD-2 to make CD-2 reliably Democratic-leaning without risking a far more competitive CD-1. it’s mostly a matter of population and Portland's geographic location, although the maps wouldn’t be clean either -- you can add Brunswick but Portland/South Portland is more difficult and obviously not a compact map/a blatant gerrymander.
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AGA
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« Reply #13 on: November 21, 2020, 08:56:48 PM »

It depends on how favorable the national environment, if Democrats are leading nationally by at least 2, then yes.
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neostassenite31
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« Reply #14 on: November 21, 2020, 09:13:36 PM »
« Edited: November 21, 2020, 09:27:30 PM by neostassenite31 »

Can Maine Dems gerrymander its congressional districts so both voted for Biden without sacrificing either seat?

Sure, by moving Lewiston into district 1 and moving some coastal areas north/east of Portland into district 2. This would make both districts D-leaning.

One the rudimentary rules of partisan gerrymandering is that you usually need at a minimum 3 districts to make it really work.

With two districts you can only either:
A). draw two districts that both closely matches the state at-large's partisan lean (and hence the map would not be gerrymandered by most partisan metrics)

B). pack the Ds into one district and the Rs into the other, which can be done to varying degrees. This on net will also result in no overall statewide seat or vote bias because any excess votes for one party in one district must be balanced by a specific amount of excess votes for the other party in the second district such that the sum matches the statewide margin. The overall combined competitiveness of the two districts on average would not be much different from scenario A, so no gerrymandering here either.

Scenario A can easily turn into a dummymander if Maine trends R in the future or with a R favorable midterm wave. Also, Maine's current congressional map is already a case of scenario B.
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Junior Chimp
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« Reply #15 on: November 22, 2020, 02:57:39 AM »

Can Maine Dems gerrymander its congressional districts so both voted for Biden without sacrificing either seat?

Sure, by moving Lewiston into district 1 and moving some coastal areas north/east of Portland into district 2. This would make both districts D-leaning.

One the rudimentary rules of partisan gerrymandering is that you usually need at a minimum 3 districts to make it really work.

With two districts you can only either:
A). draw two districts that both closely matches the state at-large's partisan lean (and hence the map would not be gerrymandered by most partisan metrics)

B). pack the Ds into one district and the Rs into the other, which can be done to varying degrees. This on net will also result in no overall statewide seat or vote bias because any excess votes for one party in one district must be balanced by a specific amount of excess votes for the other party in the second district such that the sum matches the statewide margin. The overall combined competitiveness of the two districts on average would not be much different from scenario A, so no gerrymandering here either.

Scenario A can easily turn into a dummymander if Maine trends R in the future or with a R favorable midterm wave. Also, Maine's current congressional map is already a case of scenario B.

Actually, if you want to take scenario B a step further, you could make Portland, Lewiston, and Bangor all fall in district 1, which would make district 1 a virtual lock for Democrats and district 2 a virtual lock for Republicans.
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