Northern Maine

[NOVA Green]

"Northern Maine" isn't nearly populous enough to get its own district. ME-02 also includes some inland areas in southern Maine that also trended heavily toward Trump. The district line actually matches the current partisan divide in the state pretty well, although not perfectly. I suspect most of ME-01's R trend was coming from the culturally ME-02ish areas like Augusta that are in ME-01.

As for the future, I'm not sure. I'm not sure why the district ever voted Democratic, to be honest.

Lewiston, ME, was a democratic counties, and counties in the NW of the state had lots of resource focused industries in where workers voted for the democrats.

Lewiston is a good point, which was not the original focus of my OP, but is still illustrative of how Trump was able to perform extremely well in historically Democratic constituencies in many smaller mill towns in various regions of the country.

Lewiston--- (2004-2016 Presidential GE Election Restults)

2004: 17,663 Total Votes (62.4% D- 36.9% R)    +25.5% D
2008: 16,905 Total Votes (62.9% D- 35.3% R)    +27.6% D       (+2.1% D Swing)
2012: 15,809 Total Votes (60.9% D- 36.7% R)    +24.2% D       (+3.4% R Swing)
2016: 16,738 Total Votes (49.1% D- 43.8% R)    +5.3%  D        (+18.9% R Swing)


So, read them and weep Democrats, and read them and gloat Trump Republicans....

Basically a city that historically was verging on a 2:1 constituency turns to a narrow Democratic Presidential victory in virtually one election cycle....

I'm sure the numbers are much worse on the outskirts of Lewiston, not to mention the more rural parts of the county....

Interestingly enough Lewiston actually had a pretty decent DEM PRES bounce back in 2020:

2004: 17,663 Total Votes (62.4% D- 36.9% R)    +25.5% D
2008: 16,905 Total Votes (62.9% D- 35.3% R)    +27.6% D       (+2.1% D Swing)
2012: 15,809 Total Votes (60.9% D- 36.7% R)    +24.2% D       (+3.4% R Swing)
2016: 16,738 Total Votes (49.1% D- 43.8% R)    +5.3%  D        (+18.9% R Swing)
2020: 17,388 Total Votes (55.3% D- 41.6% R)    +13.7% D       (+8.4% D Swing)

Trump's 2020 results were still significantly higher than PUB results in '04 > '12, but it does make one wonder to what extent some of these significant swings in ME-02 were temporary because of the candidate.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

"Northern Maine" isn't nearly populous enough to get its own district. ME-02 also includes some inland areas in southern Maine that also trended heavily toward Trump. The district line actually matches the current partisan divide in the state pretty well, although not perfectly. I suspect most of ME-01's R trend was coming from the culturally ME-02ish areas like Augusta that are in ME-01.

As for the future, I'm not sure. I'm not sure why the district ever voted Democratic, to be honest.

Lewiston, ME, was a democratic counties, and counties in the NW of the state had lots of resource focused industries in where workers voted for the democrats.

Lewiston is a good point, which was not the original focus of my OP, but is still illustrative of how Trump was able to perform extremely well in historically Democratic constituencies in many smaller mill towns in various regions of the country.

Lewiston--- (2004-2016 Presidential GE Election Restults)

2004: 17,663 Total Votes (62.4% D- 36.9% R)    +25.5% D
2008: 16,905 Total Votes (62.9% D- 35.3% R)    +27.6% D       (+2.1% D Swing)
2012: 15,809 Total Votes (60.9% D- 36.7% R)    +24.2% D       (+3.4% R Swing)
2016: 16,738 Total Votes (49.1% D- 43.8% R)    +5.3%  D        (+18.9% R Swing)


So, read them and weep Democrats, and read them and gloat Trump Republicans....

Basically a city that historically was verging on a 2:1 constituency turns to a narrow Democratic Presidential victory in virtually one election cycle....

I'm sure the numbers are much worse on the outskirts of Lewiston, not to mention the more rural parts of the county....

Interestingly enough Lewiston actually had a pretty decent DEM PRES bounce back in 2020:

2004: 17,663 Total Votes (62.4% D- 36.9% R)    +25.5% D
2008: 16,905 Total Votes (62.9% D- 35.3% R)    +27.6% D       (+2.1% D Swing)
2012: 15,809 Total Votes (60.9% D- 36.7% R)    +24.2% D       (+3.4% R Swing)
2016: 16,738 Total Votes (49.1% D- 43.8% R)    +5.3%  D        (+18.9% R Swing)
2020: 17,388 Total Votes (55.3% D- 41.6% R)    +13.7% D       (+8.4% D Swing)

Trump's 2020 results were still significantly higher than PUB results in '04 > '12, but it does make one wonder to what extent some of these significant swings in ME-02 were temporary because of the candidate.[/b]

Also illustrative that Trump was ill suited to further push the needle on these gains, or to gain back lost ground with CEWs.

Furthermore, there is this presumption that only UMC types care about "Executive Competence", etc and that NCWs don't care at all about those factors.

[lfromnj]

The French towns in the far north did actually have Appalachian like swings from +50 Obama to like +10  Trump