Maine Democrats have been in firm control of state politics under Gov. Janet Mills, but the grip has slipped somewhat since 2020 with Republicans making gains in communities of all sizes.
The changes are not yet causing panic among state leaders, but they coincide with Democrats ceding ground to Republicans in the past four years in all 30 states that track registration by party, according to a New York Times analysis published Wednesday.
Even small shifts could affect races next year, as the 2024 election saw the race for Maine’s 2nd Congressional District and the Legislature decided by thin margins. Democrats here and elsewhere will be stretching to expand their reach as a check on President Donald Trump and Republicans.
Democrats have gone from making up 35.7 percent of registered Maine voters on Election Day 2020 to 34.3 percent as of this February, according to the most recent data from the secretary of state’s office. Republicans have gone from 28.4 percent to 29.9 percent of registered voters.
Slight drops span the state. Democratic shares of registered voters have declined in 430 of Maine’s more than 500 communities. Notable drops include cities such as Lewiston, the Augusta-area town of West Gardiner, the Portland-area town of Buxton, the town of Passadumkeag that is north of Bangor and the Aroostook County town of Eagle Lake that is home to the legendary former Maine House Speaker John Martin, a Democrat.
Apart from cities and suburbs that have remained blue, the rural areas where Democrats have made slight gains while Republicans hug the coast, including the towns of Mount Desert, Veazie and Southport. But the state’s political realignment has otherwise been apparent since November, when Democrats lost their remaining Aroostook County seats in the Legislature.
Maine Democratic Party Executive Director Devon Murphy-Anderson did not respond to a request for comment Wednesday. Maine Republican Party Executive Director Jason Savage attributed the voter registration changes to rural Mainers being “fed up with the extreme policies of the Democrats.”
“I think it used to be that local Democrats would express they are different [from] what they saw nationally, but I think now they’ve all been falling in line,” Savage said.
Former Rep. Scott Landry, D-Farmington, bucked his party on certain issues such as gun control before he left office last year. Landry said Wednesday his purple district in western Maine features a “pretty active bunch” of Franklin County Democrats. But the farmer said he does not see as many other Democratic candidates “stepping up” elsewhere despite plenty of opposition to Trump’s agenda.
“With the way things are going nationally, I’m just flabbergasted,” Landry said. “I’m not a liberal by any means, but it just blows my mind what’s going on out there.”
Rep. Dan Shagoury, D-Hallowell, a longtime legislative staffer who has represented his city and the Augusta-area towns of Manchester and West Gardiner since 2022, had a tight reelection fight last year, beating Republican Joe Boyd by about 2 percentage points.
The lawmaker acknowledged growing conservative ranks in West Gardiner and said it is not always due to changes in party registration but rather “more people moving there.” Shagoury declined to weigh in on how the Democratic Party could bounce back with registering voters in rural Maine.
“It’s sort of above my paygrade,” he said. “I just want to keep winning my district.”