By Michael Shepherd - Nov. 15, 2022
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📷 Sen. Trey Stewart, R-Presque Isle, watches the vote tally as a member of the House of Representatives at the State House in Augusta on Aug. 26, 2019. (BDN photo by Troy R. Bennett)

Hello from Augusta. There are 22 days until the new Legislature convenes.

What we're watching today

Republicans blame former president, other standard bearers and "message" for a bad Maine election. It is the time of year for election autopsies. They are particularly notable on the Republican side as the party limps toward a majority in the U.S. House of Representatives but has already lost the Senate and remains totally out of power at the state level in Maine.

One thing that I am hearing both in public and behind the scenes is blame on former President Donald Trump, who may announce a third presidential run on Tuesday night at a Florida rally. Former state Rep. Corey Wilson, a Republican from Readfield who lost to Rep. Tavis Hasenfus, D-Readfield, said he heard many reports at doors of voters turned off by Trump's election denialism and was asked many questions about abortion rights during his campaign.

The suburbs were a major problem. Gov. Janet Mills routed former Gov. Paul LePage in places he has won before, like Scarborough, where a 6-point LePage victory in 2014 morphed into a staggering 33-point loss this time. We always knew the growing and left-shifting Portland suburbs would be more difficult for him, but we did not know it would be an almost-total washout.

Many conversations are turning toward who will run the party at the national level. Put forward Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis as the next person up, Matt Gagnon, the CEO of the conservative Maine Policy Institute, used his WGAN radio show to argue that DeSantis could build on Trump's working-class appeal without getting shellacked around the cities.

“You’ve got to be able to find a way of marrying that with being able to appeal to a guy who lives in Yarmouth, for God sakes,” Gagnon said on Friday.

His group's news arm has hosted two election postmortems. Steve Robinson, the site's editor, called for unified legislative minorities in Augusta, said "placing young, media savvy, strategically minded conservatives in charge is the only possible path to becoming relevant again" and argued the party must overcome resistance to absentee voting. Far-right former state Rep. Larry Lockman faulted LePage for talking more about costs than social issues, although polling confirmed economic issues were the biggest ones facing voters.

It is clear that Republicans are in for major changes. LePage is widely expected to leave Maine's political stage, while Poliquin has now lost four of the six campaigns that he has run since 2010. Sen. Susan Collins is the only Republican left with proven statewide appeal behind wide support in the 2nd District and competing in the suburbs.

"Nominating electable candidates matters — a lot," Cody Porter, the head of Maine College Republicans, tweeted last week.

The new Republican leaders in the Maine Legislature, incoming Senate Minority Leader Trey Stewart of Presque Isle and House Minority Leader Billy Bob Faulkingham of Winter Harbor, both cited the party's message as something that needs to be improved in interviews with WMTW.

“Right now, the Republican Party is going through a branding problem,” Stewart said. “Our message wasn’t clear.”

Was it the message or was it the content? No matter what you think, conditions were good for Republican gains in Maine this time around and effectively none were made. They will have little more than a bully pulpit in Augusta again for the next two years. It will have to be used wisely if they will plot a comeback.

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News and notes

📷 Rep. Jared Golden of Maine's 2nd District speaks at a news conference on Nov. 1, 2022, at the State House in Augusta. (AP photo by Robert F. Bukaty)

🔢 The ranked-choice count in Maine's 2nd District comes today.

◉ It is all but assured that Rep. Jared Golden, a Democrat, won a third term over former Rep. Bruce Poliquin, but he fell short of a first-round majority last week, so Secretary of State Shenna Bellows' office is running a ranked-choice count of the district's votes in Augusta on Tuesday afternoon. Watch it live.

◉ Independent Tiffany Bond will be eliminated and the second choices of the 21,000 votes who ranked her first will be considered. Golden leads with 48.3 percent of votes to Poliquin's 44.8 percent, according to unofficial results reported to the Bangor Daily News.

◉ Golden is expected to get a majority of the Bond voters who rank someone second, according to a SurveyUSA poll released this month by FairVote and the Bangor Daily News. We are expecting something like a 6- to 7-point win for the incumbent when the count concludes.

💅 Maine saw record turnout in last week's election.

◉ Maine had the second-highest voter turnout among state for this midterm election, lagging only Minnesota, according to preliminary data collected by the U.S. Elections Project.

◉ The 675,000 voters estimated to have come out would add equal 60.9 percent of the voting-eligible population. It is the largest share on record for a midterm election here going back to 2010, narrowly outpacing the 60.2 percent that voted in the 2018 election in which Mills won her first term.

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What we're reading

👀 A Maine surgeon's career advanced despite complaints of gender discrimination and patient care complaints, a BDN investigation found.

⛄ There will be less federal heating aid available to Mainers this winter.

⏪ Former Secretary of State Matt Dunlap was reappointed as state auditor after leaving the position last year because of a failed exam.

😬 The University of Maine and the system's Farmington campus need to close large budget gaps before the academic year ends.

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