Republicans are feeling bullish about potential gains in Maine that could boost Donald Trump in the presidential race and help Austin Theriault flip a House seat Democrats have held since 2019, ruining Dem hopes of retaking control of the chamber.
Trump, who carried the 2nd Congressional District in 2020, has stretched a 2-point lead in surveys from July and the beginning of October to a 9-point, 50% to 41% advantage over Kamala Harris there, per an internal National Republican Congressional Committee poll released Wednesday,
The former president has benefited from later-deciding voters going his way. While 14% polled over the summer were undecided or leaning to another option, just 8% have yet to make a decision in the latest survey.
Harris leads in most statewide polling, but one electoral vote can make a difference given how scrambled swing-state polls have been this cycle, with 93 votes up for grabs in those seven battlegrounds.
Maine is one of two states, with Nebraska, without winner-take-all electoral votes. It gives two to the statewide popular-vote winner and one vote each to the parties that win its two congressional districts.
Republican Theriault is becoming a better-known commodity in the 2nd as the campaign nears a close, reversing a race that once looked to be locked up by incumbent Jared Golden, who’s running as a Blue Dog Democrat closer to outgoing West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin than to Harris and the Squad.
Why has the race gone from 50% vs. 40% in the incumbent’s favor to 47% vs. 45% the other way?
Seventy-two percent of voters know who the Republican stock-car-racing driver is, almost double the 39% who did in July, and he has a net-favorable approval rating.
Another reason for GOP optimism: Republican attacks on Golden have landed, tarnishing his numbers with GOP voters who otherwise might be more responsive to moderate messaging. In July, the incumbent was just -13 with Republicans (33% to 46%). Golden now stands at -47 (20% to 67%).
That puts Theriault at a healthy +71 in the ballot test among GOP registrants, with 83% support against 12% for Golden.
He’s tied with Golden among independents; each has 43% support, with 15% undecided. The incumbent was up 52% to 31% in July, with 17% undecided, meaning messaging has worked beyond the Republican base.
And even Democrats are moving, though much more slightly, as Golden’s 89% to 5% lead has shrunk to 84% to 8% inside his own party since July.
Golden has flip-flopped on gun control and other issues, leading to an onslaught of untimely “negative news,” the NRCC notes: 26% of voters are hearing good things about him, while 43% are not.
Will this be enough to flip a seat in a closely divided Congress? That’s the open question with 13 days to go.
