By Michael Shepherd - Nov. 7, 2022
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📷 This photo combination shows former Republican Gov. Paul LePage and Democratic Gov. Janet Mills. Independent candidate Sam Hunkler is also on the ballot in Tuesday's election. (AP photos by Robert F. Bukaty)

Good morning from Augusta. Tomorrow is Election Day.

What we're watching today

Candidates focused on the ground game and kept things low-key on Maine's final campaign weekend. The final days of any election are nerve-wracking ones for politicians and their aides. Tens of millions on dollars have been spent hammering home issues to the voters, more than 200,000 people already cast their votes as of Friday and there is little left to do but wait.

Each of the big-name candidates spent their weekends exhorting the last-minute canvassers doing last-minute door-knocking to try to lock down remaining votes. Republicans focused heavily on the swing city of Lewiston, where dozens of volunteers hit the pavement on a warm weekend.

Before they left an office building, former Gov. Paul LePage told them the ground game is what "it's all about" in his race with Gov. Janet Mills, while Rep. Bruce Poliquin of Maine's 2nd District advised volunteers on how to speak with a subset of voters about his Democratic opponent in a ranked-choice race that also includes independent Tiffany Bond.

"If you hear, Jared Golden's not that bad,' are you kidding me?" Poliquin said before launching into a common refrain. "Jared Golden voted 87 percent of the time with Joe Biden."

Golden held no public events on the last few days of the campaign. We found him gathered with a few supporters at a sports bar in Farmington watching the New England Patriots game, responding to Poliquin's argument by likening the Republican to a wind-up toy and saying you "pull the cord in his back and he's going to say one of three things."

"I believe enough of my constituents are aware of the way that I've done the job: independent and without concern for whatever (politically] impacted me or may not have," the second-term congressman said.

Mills was the most active in public over the weekend, stumping in Bangor on Saturday by saying Maine "cannot go back to the instability and infighting and name-calling that stands in the way" of solving problems.

In Biddeford on Sunday, she stood outside a brewery when we asked her about a recent Washington Post-ABC poll that found voters trusted Republicans far more than Democrats on handling the economy. Mills declined to say if Democrats had a message problem, pivoting to her record.

"I've managed budgets, balanced every budget, and I've got bipartisan support for free community college, free meals in public schools, inflation relief, $850 checks," she said. "Those things help the economy."

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What we're reading

📺 Here's what the final TV ads tell you about Maine's biggest campaigns.

🔦 Poll watchers have been hostile elsewhere, but there is no sign of trouble here ahead on Tuesday's election.

🔢 We break down how ranked-choice voting will work in Maine's election.

✅ Sen. Susan Collins appealed to swing voters this weekend for Pennsylvania's Mehmet Oz in a toss-up Senate race.

🔶 He was shot while hunting 30 years ago. He is still out there today.

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News and notes

📷 Voters attend a forum with former Rep. Bruce Poliquin and former Gov. Paul LePage on Oct. 21, 2022, in Lewiston. (AP photo by Robert F. Bukaty)

📅 Here's the Monday schedule on the campaign trail.

◉ Mills will be with Democratic lawmakers for a downtown walk in Bath at 10 a.m. before a 12:30 p.m. visit with students at Southern Maine Community College in South Portland. (Independent Sam Hunkler will also be there.)

◉ She will then go to Lewiston to meet with workers at the Walmart distribution center and hold a 5 p.m. rally at Dufresne Park to close her campaign out.

◉ LePage holds his closing rally at 5 p.m. at the American Legion Hall in Scarborough.

◉ Poliquin will also be in Lewiston for a 1 p.m. rally and news conference in Kennedy Park. Golden has no public events.

📊 A late-breaking poll has Mills up with the 2nd District race virtually tied.

◉ Mills had 52 percent support to LePage's 44 percent in a poll released Sunday by the University of New Hampshire. But the 2nd District race was firmly in the balance, with Golden finding 46 percent support to Poliquin's 45 percent and independent Tiffany Bond pulling 8 percent.

◉ That hews to a general theme in public polling that deems the Golden-Poliquin election in the conservative-leaning half of Maine to be more competitive than the governor's race. It will be decided by ranked-choice voting.

📪 Poliquin makes a mail play for No. 2 voters.

◉ The Republican used a Bond quote against Golden in an apparent play to win some of her supporters over in a ranked-choice count.

◉ The quote on the front of the mailer, which says the Democratic congressman "gladly throws women, families in front of a bus on this to help him get elected" is a reference to Golden saying in a debate that he did not support late-term abortion — something Poliquin has said is "horrible."

◉ Golden beat Poliquin in 2018 by winning an outsized share of second-choice votes from those who picked Bond and another independent first. A SurveyUSA poll last week showed that the incumbent still has an advantage among Bond voters, but Poliquin is trying to blunt that margin.

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