The proportion of Mainers registered to vote as Republicans has grown in the past five years in a warning sign for Democrats trying to maintain control over Augusta.
From 2020 to February 2025, the number of Maine registered voters declined by 1.6%. Democrat registrations declined by about 6% during that period, while Republican registrations bumped up by 7%. Unaffiliated and third-party voter registrations declined by 3%.
This shift is small but consistent. Across the state, 188 cities and towns with 1,000 voters or more shifted toward Republicans. Those places ranged from Portland, the most liberal place in the state, to the rural and conservative strongholds of northern, central and eastern Maine. Only 51 towns saw Democratic gains, and those were almost exclusively along the coast.
“[Democrats] have got to do a better job and get their message out to the working class folks here and across the country,” former U.S. Rep. Mike Michaud, a Democrat from East Millinocket who represented the 2nd Congressional District from 2003 to 2015, said.
Maine remained a Democratic state as of last year, with 45,000 more members of that party than Republicans. Maine’s semi-open primaries that began in 2024 also allow unenrolled voters to participate in their chosen party’s nomination races, eliminating one of the major incentives to enroll with one party or another.
But the data does hint at how political identity is changing in Maine. In the era of President Donald Trump, Republicans have made inroads in the working class, with particular focus on communities that have lost their economic base. Over the past decade, Democrats have begun to control suburbs that were in the Republican column a generation ago.
Michaud rose in politics while working at the Great Northern paper mill in his hometown that closed in 2014. In that era, Democrats got messages out to workers through unions, long the backbone of the party. Those networks have been disrupted, and Republicans have taken over former strongholds like Rumford and the Millinocket area.
While Democrats hold the statewide edge on Republicans due to dominance in southern Maine, Republicans now have a registration advantage in half of Maine’s 16 counties.
Their gains have been strongest in the rural places that have become their center counties, with registrations in Aroostook swinging 12.4% toward Republicans since 2020. Somerset, Washington and Piscataquis counties were not far behind. The GOP has also overtaken Democrats in Aroostook, Kennebec and Oxford counties during the past five years.
Republicans are eating away at Democrats’ registration edge in other places, especially in Androscoggin County outside of Lewiston and Auburn. Even though Democrats maintain a majority of registrations, their lead shrank by 8% in the past five years.
Across the state, 71 municipalities where Democrats had a registration advantage in 2020 flipped to Republicans by 2025. A flip in the opposite direction only happened in three towns. Overall, 420 towns saw their registration margins shift toward Republicans, while just 76 moved toward Democrats.
Swings can be dramatic in Maine’s smallest towns. For example, Talmadge in Washington County moved toward Republicans by a margin of more than 51% as its voting population declined to just 28 people. Swings like this have little effect on the electorate.
Among towns with more than 1,000 registered voters, Madawaska, in Aroostook’s St. John Valley, saw the most dramatic swing. Democrats have a slight edge in registration there, but declining numbers of Democrats and other voters caused the party registration balance to shift toward Republicans by nearly 25% since 2020.
Republicans are making registration gains in cities as well; Lewiston’s registrations swung more than 10% toward the GOP in the past five years. The number of Republicans has stayed roughly flat, but the population of Democrats and other registrants declined sharply.
The largest registration advantage swing toward Democrats was in Castine, where registrations shifted toward Democrats by more than 10 percentage points. The severity of that swing was eclipsed by 55 large or medium towns that moved to the right by a greater margin.
It’s not all bad news for Democrats. Some towns, particularly in York County and the midcoast, moved left. Towns where Republicans held a registration advantage in 2020 were more likely to see registered voter populations shrink overall, blunting the rightward swing.
Daniel O’Connor is a Report for America corps member who covers rural government as part of the partnership between the Bangor Daily News and The Maine Monitor, with additional support from BDN and Monitor readers.
