Maine Voters Are Starting To See Clearly The Republicans Are Their Enemy-- When Will They Realize Most Democratic Politicians Are Too?

Snake-Oil by Chip Proser

Like voters in every other state, Mainers trust their governor more than Señor Trumpanzee to respond to the pandemic. A fairly lame, tepid middle-of-the-road Democrat, Janet Mills, who was late on taking the necessary precautions-- but much better than Trump, of course-- saw a nice bump in her job approval ratings. Before the pandemic her approval was 47%. Now it's 60%-- a nice rise for someone who's just better than Trump and not much more.

The pandemic is now the #1 issue in Maine, as it is in most states. The Bangor Daily News reported that "Respondents overwhelmingly preferred Maine’s response to the coronavirus to that of the federal government with 74 percent of those surveyed saying they approved of the state’s response to the virus so far, compared to 44 percent for the federal government. While both Republicans and Democrats gave the state government’s response positive ratings so far, Democrats were more likely to say they trusted the state’s response. Seventy-four percent of Democrats said they trusted the state government compared to 50 percent of Republicans. On the other hand, 57 percent of Republicans said they trusted the federal government to respond to the virus compared to just 23 percent of Democrats."

Maine seems to thrive on political mediocrity and all their top politicians are a bunch of centrists. It amazed me in 2016 went Bernie beat Hillary there 64.3% to 35.5%. I guess Mainers are better than their politicians. This cycle the reverted to form and gave Status Quo Joe the most votes-- 68,396 (34.1%), as opposed to 65,894 for Bernie (32.9%). Elizabeth Warren played the spoiler with 31,514 votes (15.7%). Bloomberg was the only other candidate in double digits-- 24,131 (12.0%).

The poll showed a further drop in approval for Republican Sen. Susan Collins since last fall, from 42 percent to 37 percent, while the share of voters who disapproved of her performance climbed to 52 percent, though her approval rating with Republican voters continued to rise. Independent Sen. Angus King remained popular, with 59 percent of voters approving of his performance.

U.S. Reps. Chellie Pingree of the 1st District and Jared Golden of the 2nd District, both Democrats, were above-water with constituents. Fifty-one percent of voters approved of Pingree while 19 percent disapproved. For Golden, a freshman, 42 percent of voters approved of his performance while 19 percent disapproved.

The DSCC found some crap moderate they're working to push into the nomination to face Collins, Sara Gideon, who stands for nothing and is nothing. The progressive in the race, Betsy Sweet, in running on a Bernie-like platform. You can contribute the her campaign here.

Fortunately, more and more Mainers are changing their behavior in response to the pandemic: