PORTLAND, Maine — Maine voters on Tuesday showed a continuing penchant for making decisions outside the logic of political partisanship.
As they cast their ballots for six referendum questions, deciding a patchwork of issues lawmakers in Augusta failed to weigh in on, voters revealed more detailed dynamics of Maine’s politics in a year full of surprises and an Election Day that exposed a huge miss in political polling.
For instance, vast areas of the state that went red for Republican President-elect Donald Trump also voted to raise Maine’s minimum wage, a result that seems connected by a thread of economic insecurity or anxiety.
Places that went blue for Democrat Hillary Clinton also rejected expanding background checks on gun sales. This proves the electoral observation that background checks would elicit a bipartisan response, just not in the way its proponents had thought.
And places that voted against expanding background checks voted to legalize marijuana, in results linked by a distaste for regulation of all kinds.
Explore the ballot question results below. Hover to see how that town voted in the presidential race, if reporting is available.
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Of all the ballot questions, the map for background checks (Question 3) looked most similar to the presidential race outcome in Maine, with concentrated pockets of Clinton and Yes support along the southern coast and inland places like Carrabassett Valley, Bangor and Orono.
Bar Harbor provides one example of the alignment, where Clinton got 72 percent of the vote. Expanding background checks got 73 percent. Bar Harbor was much less certain about legalizing marijuana (59 percent) and placing a new tax on income over $200,000 to help fund public education (62 percent).
The map on Question 4, raising the minimum wage, shows the broadest divergence from the presidential map (other than Question 6, a $100,000 transportation bond, which had broad support). Border towns along Maine’s western edge to border towns in the north and east supported the measure, with much closer votes in towns that went strongest for Trump.
In tiny Magalloway Plantation, an Oxford County community bordering New Hampshire, 15 of 17 voters picked Trump, the largest margin of any community in the state. Seven ballots of 18 cast there supported raising the minimum wage.
In the Aroostook County community of Grand Isle, Clinton squeaked by with 54 percent of the vote while Question 4 earned support of 71 percent of voters. The strongest opposition to the question came from central areas of the state.
The presidential election map in this quite uncommon year looks quite different, with Clinton’s win of three of four electoral votes relying heavily on support along the coast and in Maine’s cities.
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After the particularly divisive and scorched-earth presidential campaign, the outcome of the ballot questions shows there still exists some common ground.