By Michael Shepherd - June 30, 2022
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What we're watching today

Partisan efforts to put the economy or abortion at the center of campaigns are further confounding a strange election year. The Friday decision by the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn the federal abortion protections once enshrined in Roe. v. Wade has quickly shaken up 2022 campaigns. A leaked draft decision from May gave Democrats time to plan the single-issue campaign on abortion rights that we seen in Maine in the last week after months of Republicans running hard on the economy and costs.

Tension between those two issues is likely to define at least the next few weeks of campaigning. It has already been a strange election year in Maine. Republicans have the national winds behind them, but they were thumped in a special election for a Maine Senate seat in Hancock County this month. They get a rematch in November with every seat up for grabs again and a gubernatorial election on tap, but it still sows some doubt in a massive wave election in a state that can make contradicting electoral decisions.

Early polling on the issues rated highest by voters going into the thick of the 2022 cycle has also been somewhat contradictory. After the abortion leak from the high court, a national Monmouth University survey saw abortion surge to nearly the same level of importance as the economy. Democrats are the ones who elevated that issue, which nearly half saying it was extremely important to their vote. Republicans were less concerned with it than four years ago.

In Maine, Republicans are working to downplay abortion on many fronts. Despite anti-abortion records, former Gov. Paul LePage and former U.S. Rep. Bruce Poliquin of Maine's 2nd District have been cagey on new abortion limits they would support while their Democratic opponents, Gov. Janet Mills and Rep. Jared Golden, take unequivocal pro-abortion rights stances. The state party has implored candidates to keep their focus on the economy, the issue they believe will win over swing voters.

On Wednesday, the party's national legislative campaign arm released findings from a post-Roe poll of swing states including Maine that said the economy was still far above abortion in the hierarchy of issues here. This is just a memo summarizing a poll and not the poll itself, a practice that allows partisans to cherry-pick data, but it is a datapoint worth tracking.

After early Maine polls showing Mills and LePage locked in a close race and Golden holding an opening lead over Poliquin, we are already starting to see some counterintuitive polls from other states. For example, Georgia Sen. Raphael Warnock, a Democrat, held a big lead over Republican Herschel Walker in a survey released by Quinnipiac University on Wednesday in the Republican-leaning state.

Events between now and the fall could change the relevant mix of issues. Conservative-state bans on abortion will gain lots of attention. Many analysts think gas prices have nearly peaked, although some think they could rise above $6 per gallon by summer's end. For now, Maine revenues look inflation-proof, although the economy is starting to see a shift from taxable sales to services, according to a recent budget department memo. We do not know where we will be come November, but we have a good idea of where the tensions lie.

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What we're reading

— Evidence from the congressional panel investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol against former President Donald Trump is "damning," said Rep. Chellie Pingree, a Democrat from Maine's 1st District.

— Southport, a town of just over 600 people, voted to kill a municipal broadband network after mailers and ads from the incumbent internet provider and its allies. The emerging tactics have been in similar votes across the state.

— Maine will add dental care to Medicaid coverage as of July 1 under a measure led by House Speaker Ryan Fecteau, D-Biddeford. It will expand preventative, restorative and diagnostic care to roughly 200,000 people.

— We talked to four couples who moved to Maine. Their reasons ranged from politics to a beloved TV show to a coin flip. Read our coverage of real estate and housing.

— Maine's public universities are tracking for their smallest class in years, a stark drop of 23 percent in a year. It will likely require a tuition increase.

— The group of towns trying to buy a shuttered Hampden trash plant plans to sell a majority stake to help raise the $20 million it needs for a restart.

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News and notes

— Poliquin told WVOM on Wednesday that Golden and fellow Democrats recently backed "effectively, abortion right up until birth." That's not true. Golden and Democrats advanced the Women's Health Protection Act last year, which would prohibit states from banning abortions before viability, the same as Maine law. It would allow post-viability abortions only if the mother's health was in danger.

— LePage released a letter to the Maine Education Association on Wednesday alongside a Facebook post attacking the teacher's union for backing "the failed status quo" and providing a "biased questionnaire" to candidates seeking the group's endorsement. The former governor warred with the liberal union during his tenure and he is fixing for battles again behind a vague plan for a "parents' bill of rights." Mills is probably getting the endorsement.

— Two University of Maine researchers said state and federal governments should do more to fight obesity, noting that a federal program providing nutritious meals to children was used by only about 45 percent of childcare programs here in 2021.

— Maine's automatic voter registration program is in effect, allowing you to update your registration at Bureau of Motor Vehicles offfices.

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Photo of the day

Brent Walls of the Potomac Riverkeeper Network, teaches Robby Lewis-Nash, a staff writer with Friends with Casco Bay in Portland, how to catch a drone with his hand during a recent training session, Tuesday, June 7, 2022, in Maryland. They work to protect rivers and waterways and have begun using drones to catch polluters in places where wrongdoing is difficult to see or expensive to find. (AP photo by Julio Cortez)

📷 Lead photo: Regular fuel prices neared $5 per gallon in the Bangor area on June 7, 2022, including at this station in Brewer. (BDN photo by Linda Coan O'Kresik)

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