Vice President Kamala Harris has expanded her lead on former President Donald Trump in Maine and is even leading in the rural section of the state twice won by Trump, according to a poll released Wednesday.
The survey is the University of New Hampshire’s second look at the presidential race in Maine in the month since President Joe Biden left the race and turned over the Democratic ticket to Harris. She has gotten a large bump since then, turning what had been a steady Trump lead over Biden in national polls into a narrow edge for the former California senator.
Maine has not voted for a Republican in a presidential election since 1988. Yet this UNH survey will gain attention for finding that Harris leads in the Trump-friendly 2nd District, where the winner gets one of Maine’s four electors. She had 49 percent support to 44 percent for the former president in the more conservative part of the state, the survey found.
Republicans will be skeptical of that surprising finding, which also flies in the face of at least one internal poll for a Democratic group in recent weeks that found Harris down by a significant margin. It also contradicts experts who mostly put the 2nd District in Trump’s column.
Before Biden dropped out, the Bangor Daily News’ national election results partners at Decision Desk HQ gave Trump a 92 percent chance of winning the district. He has had unique appeal there, winning it by a whopping 10 percentage points in 2016 and 7 points over Biden in 2020.
The poll paints a rosy picture for Harris across the state. It shows her at 55 percent support to just 38 percent for Trump, making for a 9-point improvement for the vice president since UNH’s last poll in July. Half of Mainers have a positive view of Harris to just 35 percent for Trump.
There was a large gap in approval for Harris and Trump’s running mates. Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, the Democratic vice presidential nominee, was favored by 46 percent compared with just 33 percent approving of his Republican counterpart, Ohio Sen. JD Vance. That gap was wider than the one found in a national poll released this week by The Associated Press.
The UNH survey could lead Democrats to focus more on the 2nd District. The Harris campaign’s early events have been centered on reliably liberal Portland and its surrounding towns. Trump has not yet visited Maine, but he came here six times ahead of the 2016 election and twice more during the 2020 campaign cycle.
Any shift at the top of the ticket could have major implications for big races down the ballot. U.S. Rep. Jared Golden, a Democrat from the 2nd District, is facing a major challenge from Republican Austin Theriault. House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-Louisiana, said during a recent visit to Auburn that the district is a top-five priority for the party in 2024.
The UNH survey featured 951 likely Maine voters who were part of an online panel or reached by text message. The error margin is plus or minus 3.2 percentage points.
