PORTLAND, Maine — Voters in Maine’s largest city put two ballot measures over the top Tuesday, clearing the way for legalization of marijuana by a razor-thin margin and a new tax on income over $200,000.
Votes compiled by the Bangor Daily News as of Thursday morning show both measures would surely have failed without big margins earned from Portland voters.
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Opponents of Question 1, legalizing recreational marijuana, held off on conceding the race decided by about 3,000 votes. The BDN declared passage of the question early Wednesday morning.
Question 2, the new tax on high earners to boost public school aid, passed by a larger margin of about 9,000 votes. The question had a margin of about 11,000 votes from Portland alone, meaning that without the city’s voters, the measure would have failed by a margin of about 2,000.
That analysis shows what becomes clear in looking at geographic breakdowns of the ballot question results: that increasing the minimum wage and instituting ranked-choice voting found substantial support outside of Maine’s liberal population center, cutting across a general urban and rural split in the presidential election between Republican President-elect Donald Trump and Democrat Hillary Clinton.
In Portland, Clinton had a margin of about 21,000 votes. That equaled the amount Trump gained across 38 communities where he had the largest margins of victory. Support in urban centers and the southern coast gave Clinton enough support to take three of Maine’s four electoral votes.
Trump won Maine’s 2nd Congressional District, splitting the state’s electoral votes for the first time in history.