Is Maine back to being a Safe D state on the presidential level?

[Catalyst138]

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?

[Catalyst138]

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.