By Michael Shepherd - May 10, 2022
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Good morning from Augusta. There are 35 days until Maine's June primaries.

What we're watching today

A new poll showed a brutal situation for Democrats entering the 2022 cycle and signs top ones can hold on in Maine. Monday brought the release of a long-awaited regular spring poll from Digital Research Inc. that showed a predictably bad environment for Democrats reeling across the country right now under President Joe Biden, whose national approval rating is in the low 40s and was even worse at 34 percent in Maine, the survey found. Read a survey presentation and the crosstabs.

The survey of 600 registered voters is more than a month old at this point and began in mid-March, so it is best viewed as a historical reference on how things were in Maine entering the spring. It was well before the leaked decision showing a U.S. Supreme Court ready to overturn abortion rights, which is something that could give Democrats a much-needed voter enthusiasm jolt.

But there is no sugarcoating things for the party in control of both Augusta and Washington. Biden is in the tank in a state he won rather easily in 2020. Just over 4 in 10 Mainers think the state is on the wrong track and 57 percent of them think the nation is. Both were the highest marks in the polling since fall of the Republican wave year of 2014.

The situation is more complicated for Maine politicians. Gov. Janet Mills had supermajority approval from spring 2020 through last fall, but she returned to her pre-pandemic level at 46 percent with 41 percent disapproving. The Democrat remained just ahead of former Gov. Paul LePage, the Republican firmly within striking distance of recapturing the Blaine House, with nearly 20 percent of voters undecided or amenable to backing an independent.

On paper, the most vulnerable Maine politician should be Rep. Jared Golden, a Democrat from the 2nd District who will likely face former Rep. Bruce Poliquin, a Republican, in November. Biden was at a staggering 25 percent approval rating in the district won twice by former President Donald Trump.

But Golden has remained above water with his voters at 41 percent approval and just 26 percent disapproval. His coalition is mixed for this era in politics, with just over half of Democrats supporting him and one-third of Republicans backing him. That could make things harder for Poliquin despite far more voters saying they would like to for vote a generic Republican over a generic Democrat in that seat. The poll did not pit Golden and Poliquin head to head.

This is just one poll. We know how polls wound up in 2020. We need more to be confident about how national problems for Democrats are trickling down to Maine. What we think so far is that national strife is the biggest problem facing them. We are not so certain it means they will be swept out.

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The Legislature's last day

Lawmakers upheld five Mills vetoes on their final day of work for 2022. The Maine Legislature was back in Augusta for what was likely its last day of the year. They were there mostly to deal with five vetoes from the governor, all of which were upheld after failing to win two-thirds votes in the House.

It was still a long day. Lawmakers left a sweeping tribal sovereignty bill opposed by Mills on the table after a prayer to open the Senate from Vice Chief Darrell Newell of the Passamaquoddy Tribe at Indian Township, who said, "Tribal-state relations are broken and irreparable until ... the sacred, inherent, sovereign rights of the Wabanaki people are recognized first."

The Senate debated a hemp licensing bill that ended up dying after a tied vote aiming to rescue it. Around the same time, a bill fixing errors in state law was held up for a while on the House side because the body was three people short of a quorum. Leaders got the members they needed and passed it.

There was then a lighter side as some members finished their careers in public service. As the House was having trouble wrangling members, Senate Minority Leader Jeff Timberlake, R-Turner, joked that he may go down to the other chamber and impersonate his sister, Rep. Shelia Lyman, R-Livermore Falls. Here's your soundtrack.

Mills appeared in the chambers to thank lawmakers. In the Senate, she said members "listened to me on occasion" and that "felt good." In his regular roast of senators, term-limited Sen. Bill Diamond, D-Windham, said as secretary of state, he revoked the driver's license of a high school-aged Sen. Brad Farrin, R-Norridgewock. The exiting Sen. Susan Deschambault, D-Biddeford, sang Frank Sinatra's "My Way." Business concluded in the early evening.

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What we're reading

— A chalk message urging U.S. Sen. Susan Collins to support a Democratic abortion-rights bill showed up on a sidewalk outside Collins' home in Bangor on Saturday. Police and public works employees responded to what the Republican senator called "defacement of public property."

— The BDN's Caitlin Andrews has this good read on the "boot work" on vaccination that reversed some of the worst racial disparities in the nation.

— It's almost tourist season. Here's what the literature says on what Airbnbs do to the housing market and how Maine cities and towns are regulating them.

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CMP's day in court

Back-to-back arguments before Maine's high court will decide the fate of a corridor on life support. The $1 billion Central Maine Power Co. corridor faces major tests in front of the Maine Supreme Judicial Court in Portland on Tuesday in two cases. One is from from CMP and its partners challenging the anti-corridor referendum that stalled the project. The other is from corridor foes challenging a public land lease related to the corridor.

We previewed these arguments in a Daily Brief last month. The CMP side is up against it here, having lost decisions in lower courts. But you can never predict what the high court will do. It notably tossed out a 2020 anti-corridor referendum as constitutional. We are expecting a decision from the court within one or two months. The arguments begin at 1:30 p.m. Stream them.

📷 Lead photo: Rep. Jared Golden of Maine's 2nd District talks with fellow hikers on the top of Black Mountain in Rumford on Aug. 20, 2020. (BDN photo by Natalie Williams)

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