Critical Insights for Maine News Today (9/27, likely voters, 9/13 in parentheses):
Libby Mitchell (D): 30 (25)
Paul LePage (R): 29 (38)
Eliot Cutler (I): 9 (11)
Shawn Moody (I): 5 (4)
Kevin Scott (I): 0 (1)
Undecided: 26 (21)
(MoE: ±4.9%)
Last we heard from Paul LePage, he was busy letting us know he’d tell Barack Obama to go to hell, and before that, he was having a televised freakout on Sept. 14 when reporters pushed him about a sketchy homestead exemption for his wife. We had an inkling that all these shenanigans were starting to take a toll on LePage with a Libby Mitchell internal from last week showing her down 4 but more importantly showing LePage’s faves dropping from 33/19 to 38/36 since July… but dang, that’s a dramatic reversal of fortune in this race that seemed DOA for the Dems.
The massive flight of voters from LePage’s camp got split two ways: half to Mitchell, half to undecided, so anything’s still possible depending on what those undecideds do. I’m surprised that none gravitated toward Eliot Cutler, who had been touted as not just a spoiler but a possible victor. I’d initially expected Cutler to draw mostly on moderate GOPers unable to deal with the teabagging LePage, but he has seemed to draw on moderate Democrats instead. Now that LePage’s true colors seem to have finally been revealed, it’ll be interesting to see if Cutler starts gaining ground, or if he starts getting viewed primarily as spoiler and dwindles down into single-digit Chris Daggett-style territory.