The candidates for U.S. Senate in Maine have raised and spent more than $5.5 million to influence voters, and outside groups have spent millions more, but three polls conducted in the week before Election Day suggest support for the candidates remains largely unchanged since the primary.
Angus King holds a double-digit lead with support of 48-50 percent of respondents in a Critical Insights poll conducted Oct. 30-31, a Public Policy Polling survey conducted Nov. 1-2 and a liberal-leaning Maine People’s Resource Center poll conducted Nov. 1-3. That’s just slightly lower than the 50-55 percent he received in June in polls conducted by a Boston radio station and Critical Insights. His support dipped into the low 40s in September.
Republican Charlie Summers has seen his support rise from the mid-20s to the mid-30s since the primary but they have not improved since September, despite ads on his behalf from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and Crossroads GPS, a PAC founded by Republican strategist Karl Rove.
The three polls, released Friday and Sunday, put support for Summers at between 33 and 36 percent.
Democrat Cynthia Dill, who in June polled below 10 percent and briefly polled in the teens after a conservative PAC bought ads supporting her in hopes of chipping away at King’s lead, is now pulling between 11 and 12 percent support, according to the surveys.
The Maine People’s Resource Center poll included 905 likely voters and has a margin of error of 3.26 percent. The PPP poll included 1,633 likely voters and has a margin of error of 2.4 percent. And the Critical Insights poll included 613 likely voters and has a margin of error of 4 percent.
While Senate results released over the past few days have been consistent, two of the polls had divergent results in the race for Maine’s 2nd Congressional District between Democratic U.S. Rep. Mike Michaud and Republican challenger Kevin Raye.
The Critical Insights survey showed a comfortable, 19-point lead for Michaud, while the Maine People’s Resource Center poll pointed to a tighter race.
Critical Insights showed Michaud leading Raye 55-36. The Maine People’s Resource Center had Michaud in the lead 50-46.
The Michaud and Raye campaigns have been battling in recent weeks over the results of internal campaign polls, with Raye’s camp claiming a slight edge in its most recent internal poll and Michaud’s campaign claiming the five-term incumbent has maintained a comfortable lead.
Both polls pointed to comfortable leads for Democratic U.S. Rep. Chellie Pingree in Maine’s 1st Congressional District. Pingree is facing a challenge from Republican state Sen. Jon Courtney.
Public Policy Polling didn’t survey Maine’s congressional races.
What do you think the final numbers in the Senate race will be on Election Day? You can enter your prediction in BDN columnist Mike Tipping’s annual election prediction pool for a chance to win a $50 gift certificate to Best Buy.
We do not hold elections anymore, we hold auctions. This time around, we only had two bidders for the presidency. All other bidders were systematically eliminated before it ever got started. Look for more of the same abuse from Washington, regardless of who buys, I mean wins, the election.
Vote for Gary Johnson. I really wish Ron Paul had run as an independent. Votes are not wasted on 3rd party candidates, when enough people vote 3rd party we will have a chance at overturning the foolish current 2-party system.
It’s not even an auction. It’s simply a circus.
Save America. Vote democrat.
The money spent (wasted) on these campaigns is disgusting.
If you ask anyone, they say they hate attack ads bombarding them during elections. And yet, when you ask why these PACs run these outrageous attack ads, the “political experts” say “because attack ads work.” So why didn’t they work in Maine’s US Senate race?
I think it’s because Karl Rove and his ilk have No Idea that Maine is more like a Big Small Town than a State. There are only 1.3 million of us. Angus King was Governor for 8 years and has now run 3 statewide elections. We know this guy. We know how smart and capable he is. We know that when he was Governor, he really was “the middleman” between the 2 political parties, and he was balanced and fair. The attack ads didn’t work in Maine because Mainers know better. We can only hope the PAC administrators remember this the next time around.
Vote Tuesday (if you haven’t already)!
I think the assumption folks like Rove make is that 80% of the electorate are morons. Looking at the fact that the race is as close as it is considering Romney is nothing more than a stuffed shirt that made hundreds of millions of dollars putting Americans out of work and sending their jobs to China makes me wonder if he might actually have a solid basis upon which to continue building power for the few corporations that apparently own many of our minds lock stock and barrel.
If King is elected it will simply prove that Rove was correct in his assumption.
Rove is an ultra corrupt SLIME. But guess what, all his attempts to buy this and other elections are going DOWN. Bye bye SLIMEBALL !
Check out “Winner Take All Politics” by Hacker and Pierson — a real eye-opener of a book!!
I say, let the GOP/TPartiers flush their deep-pocketed PAC money on nasty commercials and unwelcome misdirected mailers!
We Mainers remain unswayed.
However, since we are all being subjected to the constant barage as a result of yet another sort of ‘loyalty pledge’, perhaps the cable companies will consider lowering rates across the board by, let’s say, 20%-30%?!
We got this AND we’re keepin’ it!
Obama 2012
Republicans are beginning to realize that Willard is going to lose. They got on the stop Romney Express.
Oh Yeah ! The MittTwit is going DOWN, and it couldn’t happen to a better SHAPE SHIFTING PHONY AND CONSUMMATE LIAR than the MittTwit.
We have the best political system that money can buy ………………………………..
Until the FREE FLOWING money is stopped, OUR Country is doomed …………………………..
WHY would any honest person spend $Millions & $ Millions or (like OUR Presidential race) $BILLIONS to get a job that pays around $170,000 (congress) to $450,000 (president) ……………. plus benefits?
Maybe if the flow of money was stopped we might actually get people in office that would “WORK” for the AMERICAN Public.
It’s heartbreaking to think that all that money was spent without making a bit of difference to the end result of the voting. Had it been applied to an area of need, it could have made a positive difference far beyond what we can imagine. Talk about paying it forward!
I’ll be glad when the signs stop messing with the view and the ads stop interfering with my listening pleasure. None of it has ever made a difference in how I have voted. Political campaigns are just a reflection of who has the most money or the most backing. Give me a televised debate with a decent moderator any day. The mud slinging makes them all look bad.
I guess people in Maine made up their own minds.
I, personally, don’t do polls over the phone, as a general rule.
I hardly answer my phone directly, at all, anymore.
And the reason I know the RoboPoll analyses, in particular, are a bunch of hooey is because unless you hang on long enough to get through the various ‘options’, they ‘assume’ you are not even voting
– which is an entirely unreliable assumption. I voted early – last week!
An early ‘hang up’ is just that and equals an incomplete survey which renders no actual data and signifies nothing.
The tape keeps running and just goes through the ‘options’ and fills in their own responses.
Total waste of time and money having nothing to do with what just so happens to be accurate!
We got this AND we’re keepin’ it!
Obama 2012
btw, I keep waiting for the huge bodily injury/wrongful death liability case that is bound to happen, if it hasn’t already, when someone has an emergency and is trying to dial ‘911’ while one of those tapes has glommed on to the telephone line for more than a minute. Good luck with that!
don’t believe what you hear.
OBAMA /BIDEN 2012 !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Here it is fellow Mainers,
Angus is going to be caucusing with the Democrats, replacing our Olympia., She voted her as a moderate and her conscience. Angus was a Democrat and is still a Democrat masquerading as an Independant. He will be caucausing with the Democrats and he has been backed by them even with fellow Dem Dill running against him . WHY!!! You get what you pay for.
As far as King’s opposition goes, are they not solid indicators of insanity having expected different results by doing the same thing over and over?
The big winner here is the campaign industry and the mass media which have been raking it in big time.
Maine voters are so naively infatuated with “independents” that even Michael Heath could run with an “I” beside his name, and he would win in a landslide.
Even the Koch’s don’t have enough cash to make Summers a viable candidate.
Mainers should remember that Angus King is a liberal Democrat who changed to Independent when he realized he could not win the D primary. He left our state with a ONE BILLION DOLLAR deficit. Do you think he won’t spend, spend, spend if he gets to D. C.?
He also gave $10,000. to Obama’s re-election campaign, so do you think he has answered the question of “which party will you caucus with, etc.?”
5.5 million just to get elected. This is a disgrace. We could feed a lot of homeless, care for the poor, cloths for the needy, heat for the one in need. But you need this money for your campaign. You’re all a bunch of narcassist and you only care for yourself. You all don’t give a dam about the people in Maine.
If there were jobs they might not be homeless.. The old saying give a man a fish he will eat for the day, or teach him how to fish and he will eat for a lifetime. That is the difference in the parties.
Really????do you REALLY care about me? …I think that’s a stretch !
What do you think Romney is going to do for you? Maybe he will make those suprise cuts that you will need someday. Override Obamacare, I hope you don’t have any pre-exhisting conditions.
Well..that’s sad..you obviously need the government to do everything for you..now about pre existing conditions …why don’t you get home insurance AFTER your house burns down?..I dare say that if you were in control of the money…you would see it differently .
Bwahahahahaha…poor Karl Rove. Poor National Chamber of Commerce. Ha ha ha…. WASTED tons of money on your hopeless luckless LOSER Charlie The Vote Suppressor. GO ANGUS. He is going to wipe the floor with SUMMERS THE PATHETIC LOSER who has now lost, um, how many elections?….
Your bitternesss has distorted the truth, which makes it easy to feed you what you want to hear.. Angus will take care of himself and his cronies and not worry about what you think if he gets in.
hahahahahahah!
To the Dill voters. The only hope we have of keeping Angus out is for you all to realize she isn’t going to win- and to vote for Summers.