By Michael Shepherd - July 5, 2022 Was this newsletter forwarded to you? Sign up.
Good morning from Augusta. There are 126 days until Maine's November elections.
What we're watching today
Maine's complicated relationship with guns is underscored by a recent national bump in support for restrictions. America saw another deadly shooting on Monday, when a rooftop gunman killed six people and injured dozens at a July 4 parade in a Chicago suburb. It was less than a month and a half since the Texas school shooting that killed 19 students and two teacher. After the Monday shooting, Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker bemoaned gun violence as a "uniquely American plague."
Congress has been mostly deadlocked on gun legislation over the last three decades, but the Texas shooting prompted the first major bipartisan deal on the issue. President Joe Bidensigned a bill strengthening background checks for younger gun buyers, providing funding for state-level gun safety laws and more for mental health and school safety.
That $13 billion measure was backed by Maine's entire congressional delegation, with Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, helping to negotiate it and U.S. Rep. Jared Golden of the 2nd District, a vulnerable Democrat who has broken with his party on gun legislation, voting for it. It was notably supported by the Sportsman's Alliance of Maine, the key gun-rights group here that worked on the package through the offices of Collins and Golden. The National Rifle Associations as well as former Rep. Bruce Poliquin, Golden's Republican opponent in 2022, opposed the measure.
National polling from Civiqs clearly outlines public attitudes on gun restrictions. While Americans generally favor stronger gun laws, support goes up when there are major shootings across the country. The most recent figures show 55 percent support for stricter laws, the highest mark since July 2019 after a mass shooting at a Walmart in El Paso, Texas. Maine has generally tracked with those figures, with support for restrictions now higher than the national mark.
Maine has more experience than the rest of the country with public opinion on guns. In 2004 and 2014, the sportsman's alliance mounted two successful campaigns to beat back referendum challenges to the most common methods of bear hunting in races. While they were not explicitly about guns, they became a proxy battle over hunting culture. The same group led a 2016 successful campaign against strengthening background checks in a rebuke of former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg.
These battles have made Maine politicians shy about pursuing gun limits. Gov. Janet Mills notably won a 2018 primary while supporting stricter laws. But after taking office, she said the "people have spoken" on background checks and dissuaded fellow Democrats from advancing gun-control priorities in Augusta. She cut deals with the sportsman's alliance on a "yellow flag" compromise measure and adjacent policy areas, including a safe-storage bill.
Maine's congressional delegation was uniquely positioned in the talks over gun restrictions. The public here looks supportive of measures that are not seen as wide curtailments of gun rights. When things go further than that, the politics have gotten dicey. That is why the compromise bill was a relatively easy sell for politicians here while others have not been.
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News and notes
Where you parade is where you run.
— Top-tier candidates paired up in two of Maine's biggest July 4 parades on Monday. Mills and Golden marched in Eastport. The Republicans, former Gov. Paul LePage and Poliquin, were in Bangor.
— Republican Ed Thelander, the longshot challenger to Rep. Chellie Pingree, a Democrat from Maine's 1st District, was in Sanford, at the heart of an area where his party needs to overperform during the 2022 elections.
Biden's approval rating continues to drop in Maine.
— New Civiqs polling shows the Democrat at 51 percent disapproval to 35 percent approval. That 16-point gap is the biggest one of his presidency so far. It is poised to be a major factor in the November elections.
— There is no bright side to this for Democrats, but it is worth noting that former President Donald Trump faced net disapproval gaps of 20 points or more during much of his presidency here in Civiqs polling. Collins survived that tide in 2020 and Maine Democrats may well need to do the same.
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What we're reading
— Three years ago, Maine banned forever chemicals from packaging that touches food. But the law is lingering unimplemented, with advocates criticizing the state for not moving fast enough to switch to ready alternatives.
— The biggest sports betting platforms look to be sitting out Maine's sports betting expansion with the state providing less financial opportunity than others.
— Community colleges are seeing a wave of interest due to Mills' $20 million free-college program this year and next for Mainers graduating high school in 2020 through 2023.
— Here are the 500 projects valued at more than $900 million that Maine's congressional delegation wants to fund in the next round of earmarks.
— The Maine lawyer who argued for same-sex marriage thinks that hard-won right is secure despite a conservative shift on the U.S. Supreme Court.
Bo-Bo, an Anah Shrine clown, shakes hands with Maddox McLamb, 8, as the July 4 parade makes its way down Main Street in Bangor on Monday. (BDN photo by Linda Coan O'Kresik)
📷  Lead photo: People participate in gun control rally in front of Portland City Hall on June 11, 2022. (AP photo by Jim Gerberich)
