By Michael Shepherd - Sept. 16, 2022
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📷 Former Republican gubernatorial nominee Shawn Moody shares an awkward handshake with Democratic Gov. Janet Mills, who was then the attorney general, after a debate in Portland on Nov. 1, 2018. (BDN photo by Troy R. Bennett)

Good morning from Augusta. There are 53 days until Election Day.

What we're watching today

Maine's debate over debates is not like it is elsewhere, but they are still trending downward. We are used to drama over political debates in Maine. There was then-Gov. Paul LePage's 2014 threat to never debate his main opponent, something he backed down by agreeing to a relatively normal schedule. In 2020, Sen. Susan Collins said she would debate Democrat Sara Gideon 16 times after Gideon challenged Collins to five debates.

This wrangling has sometimes but not generally led media outlets to cancel debates. In short, politicians usually come around here. But debates are trending downward here as the issue gets far worse in swing states with key U.S. Senate races, where CNN has reported that even locking down one debate between the top candidates has been a challenge.

Maine's governor's race will be relatively normal in 2022. Both LePage and Gov. Janet Mills agreed to four televised debates on Thursday. No media outlet was spurned, including the Bangor Daily News and WGME, which will host an Oct. 24 debate. Things are more fraught in the 2nd District, where Rep. Jared Golden and former Rep. Bruce Poliquin may only debate once after the Democratic incumbent reversed himself this week to condition appearances on the attendance of independent Tiffany Bond.

When you talk debates with political operatives, you typically get two adages. One is that you cannot win a race in a debate, but you can lose one. The other is that the candidate who wants to debate less generally feels good about their standing and is trying to minimize risks.

That does not fall into a neat narrative in Maine this cycle. While LePage was difficult for media outlets to lock down for debates in 2014, he was not this year. Eight years ago, he carried a healthy list of controversial remarks but was loose and toned down by his standards, particularly in a debate that became famous for a hug and high-five between LePage and independent Eliot Cutler. They often turned debates into tag-team attacks on Democrat Mike Michaud.

Mills, a lawyer and former prosecutor, has also never been shy to debate. She did a dizzying array of a dozen or so debates during the 2018 open-seat race to succeed LePage, many of which were not televised. Neither LePage nor Mills are spending much time at those types of forums this time, only agreeing to one mutually so far while there could be another added to the calendars. They had two head-to-head debates in 2018.

Golden and Poliquin are in slightly different positions. While the incumbent led in early spring polls of the race, the 2nd District leans in favor of Republicans who expect the race to tighten down the stretch. Ranked-choice voting looms as a factor that could help Golden, which could explain his sticking up for Bond while Poliquin did not accept one other debate between the three of them.

Big campaigns are changing, becoming more reliant on money, targeted advertising and rallying bases in an era where candidates have more ways than ever to get different messages to different supporters. It may make general-interest debates less important than they were a decade ago and explain a general downward trend. But the theater of them is still unmatched.

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News and notes

📷 Gov. Janet Mills and former Gov. Paul LePage are pictured in a composite image. (BDN photos)

📊 The governor was further in front of her rival in the first public poll since the spring.

◉ Mills had 49 percent support to LePage's 38 percent in an early-September poll of 814 likely Maine voters taken by the progressive Maine People's Resource Center, a sister group of the Maine People's Alliance. The margin of error was 3.4 percent.

◉ This is the first public poll since the spring, when Mills was only just ahead of LePage and within margins of error. We will need more polls for a solid grasp on the direction of this race, but this is a datapoint that tracks with Democratic gains nationally since earlier in the year.

◉ The poll found that the Supreme Court's decision to end abortion rights made 62 percent of Maine Democrats more likely to vote. The decision had no effect on plans to vote for 65 percent of Republicans in another sign of an enthusiasm bump for a majority party that desperately needed one.

◉ We would like to see surveys come from more neutral groups, but the Maine People's Resource Center had a solid record in the last decade. It has a B/C grade from FiveThirtyEight for work conducted through 2016.

💻 Maine's House members voted for a bill blunting a federal workforce purge suggested by the former president.

◉ Both Golden and U.S. Rep. Chellie Pingree, a Democrat from the 1st District, backed a measure led by their party to prevent presidents from coming up with new federal job classifications without approval from Congress. It passed the House on Wednesday largely along party lines.

◉ It is a response to a plan from former President Donald Trump in late 2020 to reclassify tens of thousands of federal jobs into policy positions that would allow for political rather than career appointments. While it was never implemented because Trump lost the election, he has teased plans to bring it back if he runs and wins the White House again in 2024.

◉ Democratic senators are trying to rally support for a similar bill, but the chamber's 60-vote threshold will be an obstacle. Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, could be in play on it, saying she would "oppose blatant efforts to politicize the civil service."

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What we're reading

⛽ Mills and LePage came together ... to sign a fossil fuel industry pledge that allowed both parties to make a point on energy.

💒 There will be no vote on Collins' same-sex marriage bill until after the midterm elections, giving negotiators more time to win holdout Republicans.

🚓 The longshot Republican challenger to Pingree tried to frame her as anti-police, Maine Public reports.

📨 A New York man charged with being part of a fentanyl distribution ring wants a judge to find him a lawyer or lower his bail after sitting in jail since June.

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