AUGUSTA, Maine — In addition to a bevy of tight elections, a history-making referendum and power shifts at the Maine State House and — to a lesser extent — in Washington, D.C., Tuesday’s election yielded other changes in Maine’s political landscape. Here are five:
Women in the Senate
During her campaign for the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by retiring Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, Democrat Cynthia Dill argued that electing more women to the Senate would better reflect the nation’s demographics, social value and workforce needs.
That argument did not win over Maine voters, who gave Dill just 13 percent of the vote in a six-person race won handily by independent Angus King. But the new U.S. Senate that takes office in January will feature a record number of female senators. The incoming Senate will include 20 women, an increase of three over the current 17 who now serve in the chamber.
Five women — four Democrats and one Republican — won entry into the Senate on Tuesday. With the re-election of other female senators — including Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., who pundits deemed destined for near-certain defeat until her Republican opponent, Rep. Todd Akin, talked about “legitimate rape” in August — one in five members of the next Senate will be women.
Of that group, 16 are Democrats and four are Republicans. With the retirements of Snowe and Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas, Maine Sen. Susan Collins will become the longest-serving Republican woman in the Senate. Overall, Sen. Barbara Mikulski, D-Md., who was first elected in 1986, ranks as the senior female senator in terms of consecutive service.
When the five new female U.S. senators — Democrats Mazie Hirono of Hawaii, Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin and Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota, along with Republican Deb Fischer of Nebraska — take office, they will increase to 44 the number of women who have served as U.S. senators.
With King’s election to succeed Snowe, Maine’s two U.S. senators will no longer be women for the first time since Collins won election to the Senate in 1996. Three states, Washington, California and New Hampshire — where the entire congressional delegation will be women in 2013 — are represented by two female U.S. senators.
Double defeats
Two of Maine’s Republican candidates for federal office on Tuesday, Jon Courtney in the 1st Congressional District and Charlie Summers in the U.S. Senate race, shared election night disappointment with family members.
Courtney’s son, Adam Courtney, lost his first bid for elective office in District 143 in the Maine House of Representatives, which covers part of Sanford, to Democrat Anne-Marie Mastraccio by about 275 votes. Like his dad, Adam Courtney is a Republican.
Summers’ wife, Ruth, also a Republican, lost to Democrat James Boyle in the contest to succeed Dill in Maine Senate District 6.
At least the Courtneys and Ruth and Charlie Summers could console each other. In Bath, Kyle Rogers, a Republican candidate in Maine House District 62, lost that race to Democrat Jennifer DeChant and also lost his Bath City Council re-election bid to Carolyn Lockwood by 32 votes, according to unofficial ballot tallies.
Nationally, another married Republican couple — Rep. Mary Bono Mack of California and Rep. Connie Mack IV of Florida, who ran for the U.S. Senate in that state — also both fell to Democrats in this year’s elections.
Bucking the trend somewhat, Republican vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan won re-election to the U.S. House of Representatives from his district in Wisconsin.
Non-party people
The incoming Maine Legislature will include five members who belong to neither the Republican or Democratic parties. That’s the highest total of legislators from outside the two major parties since at least 1911, which is the earliest year for which the Maine House of Representatives lists party breakdowns.
The next highest total occurred in the 2005-06 Legislature, when one Green and three unenrolled lawmakers served.
Sen. Richard Woodbury, of Yarmouth, who won re-election in Senate District 11, stands to be the sole independent member of that 35-person body.
Independents elected to the Maine House of Representatives include Joseph Brooks in District 42, Jeffrey Evangelos in District 49, Rep. Ben Chipman in District 119 and James Campbell in District 138.
Chipman is the only one of the four to win a three-person contest. Brooks, Evangelos and Campbell defeated Republicans in races that did not include a Democrat on the ballot.
In a release issued Saturday, Democrats in the Maine House of Representatives listed their projected 2013 party breakdown of that chamber as 89 Democrats, 58 Republicans and four unenrolled (“leaning Democrat”) members.
Maine’s Left Coast
After the 126th Maine Legislature takes office, travelers navigating Maine’s coast by road, rail or boat will be able to go from Kennebunk to Camden without passing through one inch of land represented by a Republican in the Maine Senate. Democrats and independent Sen. Richard Woodbury of Yarmouth won in every Senate district that includes coastal property between Kennebunk and Camden.
Republican Ronald Collins in Senate District 2, which includes Wells, establishes the GOP’s southern Senate foothold. Lincolnville in Senate District 23, where Republican Michael Thibodeau won re-election, is the next community up the coast that can claim a GOP senator.
Overseas overturn?
In Saturday’s release about the party breakdown of the incoming 126th Legislature, Democrats in the Maine House of Representatives stated that overseas absentee ballots had tipped the race in House District 70 from Republican Bruce Bickford to Democrat Wayne Werts.
Unofficial vote tallies sent to the BDN after Tuesday’s election showed Bickford with a four-vote lead in the district that covers part of Auburn. Democrats now claim that Werts won by two votes.
The Maine secretary of state’s office and municipal offices are closed until Tuesday in observance of Veterans Day.
A recount in District 70 is scheduled for 8:30 a.m. Thursday, according to the House Democrats’ release.
Ironic that the republicans opted to take the red pill (portrayed in the matrix).We know the truth. The blue pill takers remain in their land of fantasy.
51% showed how they like the pickpocket in chiefs give me programs So i say let’s continue with his anti-bush policy’s.Let’s take away all of the bush programs including the tax breaks of evidently $3500 per household the 51% has enjoyed for the past 10 to 12 years.It is time all of us pay our fair share
It’s time for wealthy Americans to pay more.
Ithought it was all about fairness 10-15% pay all the bills is that fair.Lets follow Obamas cry’s to vilify success and preach mediocracy.Let’s go back to the prebush era that he sold everyone on.Let’s take away all those bad bush policy’s that hurt our nation.Let’s jump off the cliff.
The more you have the more you give. That’s fair.
How is it fair to ask hard working americans who have success to give that up for a government that just keeps wasting money.Why is it the liberals believe that government knows anything about spending other than increasing it.You would rather see your neighbor pay half or more of his income into something that will just throw it away.Rather than see them keep the spoils of success.In other words let’s not ask the less fortunate to learn to be a success. let’s just bring everyone down to the poverty level.
It is quite fair to ask those who make more to pay more. It works. It will raise revenue and it’s the right way to do it.
I’ve often wondered how Rs ended up with red given their zealous opposition to communism (as are most Ds for that matter). In this case the red pill (to borrow your metaphor) takers are more in a fantasy world.
I think Question one put a number of Ds. in office. A large turn out of yes voters most likely voted a straight D. ticket giving the edge to the Ds. in some of the closer races.
I think that Question 1 had nothing to do with congressional elections. How can anyone blame everything on Question1 when it only deals with one issue. Is it Queston 2’s, 3’s, 4’s or 5’s bond issues that changed peoples views on the political party also? Seems silly now doesn’t it? People just tired of voting party tickets because 1 size does not fit all. More people are paying attention to State and Federal elections and voting for the candidates stand on issues rather than party lines as it seems that politics is evenly divided and that is why nothing is getting accomplished without a majority of the pros or cons of the issues at hand.
I’m not blaming anything on Question 1. What I said was there was a lot of support for Question 1 and it brought a lot of voters to the polls to vote yes and that carried over to more votes for the Ds. That’s not an attack…it’s an observation. Sometimes its just that simple.
You may well be right.
I think Dems turned out to vote Dem to counter act the current administration in our State….ask the 61%….its been the plan all along….show em how we feel in 2012
That must have been what happen a few years ago when the 62% all showed up to vote. How quickly we forget.
This from a “facebook post” in the PPH today comments section re: queerage.
http://www.pressherald.com/news/hearing-the-of-gay-wedding-bells_2012-11-11.html
“Peter Bouchard
Regardless of the issue- we need a national voting data base. In my friends shop 25 women came in & bragged about being from OR, setting up mail to go to a friends house, vote here and in OR. So a national data base would help cure voter fraud. Surprised? I’m not. Not at all.
Your link reveals no quote anything like the one you posted. Nothing about women from Oregon voting, nothing that would justify a national voting base.
The simple truth is you lied.
There was a decline in turnout nationally from 2008 in white voters that cannot be explained by demographics. About 8 million. It is not yet understood what happened but from my reading the decline was evenly distributed around the country. It may have played a role.
Maybe the 8 million are just tired of trying to defend against the constant onslaught for social and fiscal decline that 51% of americans so desperately want to hang on too.
The thought occurred to me also though there is no evidence to say so.
TV ads don’t get people to the polls.
Voted straight D, and No on one.
His was a well thought out post……….bet you wished you had thought of it, because you didn’t put much thought in yours. I’ll bet that your party’s butt is a little “touchy feely” sore right now. It just got kicked. Has LePage come out of his closet that he hid in after learning the election results?