The latest poll in the blue state of Maine shows former President Donald Trump taking an early lead for the first time in a state that he has never been able to carry.
The first major poll in the Pine Tree State was released Monday. Conducted from Feb. 6 to Feb. 14 by the Portland polling firm Pan Atlantic Research, it found Trump leading President Joe Biden by 6 points, 38 to 32, according to the Bangor Daily News.
The poll is a surprising turn compared to the results of the 2020 election. While Trump did carry one of the state’s two congressional districts that year, overall he lost Maine by 9 points, according to CNN. Biden took 53 percent of the vote to Trump’s 44.
📊 MAINE POLL: Pan Atlantic Research
Statewide
Trump: 38% (+6)
Biden: 32%
Other: 21%Was Biden +1 in November
—
CD1
Biden: 39% (+8)
Trump: 31%
Other: 23%CD2
Trump: 45% (+20)
Biden: 25%
Other: 19%
—
GOP Primary
Trump 66% (+42)
Haley 24%
—
Favs
Sen King (I): 60-28 (+32)
Rep… pic.twitter.com/GHfx9Rf2lk— InteractivePolls (@IAPolls2022) February 26, 2024
Maine has not seen a majority vote for a Republican president since George H.W. Bush beat Democrat Michael Dukakis and won the state in 1988. Mainers also voted for Ronald Reagan in both 1980 and 1984.
Ominously for both Trump and Biden, fully 30 percent in the poll said that they were either backing someone else or were still undecided.
The poll surveyed 791 likely voters and has an error margin of 3.5 percentage points.
In more bad news for Biden, the same poll did not find any such lack of support for other liberal candidates running for office in Maine. U.S. Sen. Angus King, an independent who caucuses with Democrats, and Democratic U.S. Rep. Jared Golden, both enjoyed majority support in the poll.
Will Trump win in 2024?
Yes: 95% (83 Votes)
No: 5% (4 Votes)
Meanwhile, even in a state where the secretary of state tried to boot Trump off the 2024 ballot (that decision is on hold pending the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in a Colorado case), Biden was viewed negatively by a whopping 61 percent of Mainers in the poll.
The Bangor Daily News added that there was only one bright spot for Biden in the poll. The president does hold a scant lead among those who said they were certain to vote in November, with 40 percent saying they would vote for Biden’s re-election to Trump’s 37 percent. Meanwhile, 23 percent of this group said they either backed another candidate or were undecided.
The race for Maine’s Second District House seat is only just getting started and most voters are not well informed about Golden’s GOP opponents, state Reps. Austin Theriault of Fort Kent and Mike Soboleski of Phillips, the Bangor Daily News reported.
So far, Theriault — a former NASCAR driver — leads with the support of the state’s Republican establishment and 28 percent of voters, according to the Pan Atlantic Research poll. Soboleski earned 10 percent in the poll.
Trump’s strength in this first major poll of the year in Maine may end up being an outlier, but it is notable for a generally Democrat-leaning state and seems to show just how unpopular Biden is at this stage of the campaign.
The state’s Democrat-led election officials initially tried to remove Donald Trump from the primary ballot by claiming he led an “insurrection” on Jan. 6, 2021.
However, the Maine State Supreme Court unanimously reversed that move saying that Maine’s Democratic Secretary of State, Shenna Bellows, was legally bound to wait until the U.S. Supreme Court weighed in on Trump’s eligibility before being allowed to remove his name from any ballots.
The high court heard arguments Feb. 8 on Trump’s appeal of a Colorado Supreme Court decision that disqualified him from the ballot for supposedly engaging in “insurrection” related to the Capitol incursion of Jan. 6, 2021.
Maine’s presidential primary is set to be held on March 5.
