Donald Trump could take electoral vote and drive GOP flip in Congress
Republicans are feeling bullish about potential gains in Maine that could boost Donald Trump in the presidential race and help Austin Theriault flip a House seat Democrats have held since 2019, ruining Dem hopes of retaking control of the chamber.
Trump, who carried the 2nd Congressional District in 2020, has stretched a 2-point lead in surveys from July and the beginning of October to a 9-point, 50% to 41% advantage over Kamala Harris there, per an internal National Republican Congressional Committee poll released Wednesday,
The former president has benefited from later-deciding voters going his way. While 14% polled over the summer were undecided or leaning to another option, just 8% have yet to make a decision in the latest survey.
Harris leads in most statewide polling, but one electoral vote can make a difference given how scrambled swing-state polls have been this cycle, with 93 votes up for grabs in those seven battlegrounds.
Maine is one of two states, with Nebraska, without winner-take-all electoral votes. It gives two to the statewide popular-vote winner and one vote each to the parties that win its two congressional districts.
Republican Theriault is becoming a better-known commodity in the 2nd as the campaign nears a close, reversing a race that once looked to be locked up by incumbent Jared Golden, who’s running as a Blue Dog Democrat closer to outgoing West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin than to Harris and the Squad.
Why has the race gone from 50% vs. 40% in the incumbent’s favor to 47% vs. 45% the other way?
Seventy-two percent of voters know who the Republican stock-car-racing driver is, almost double the 39% who did in July, and he has a net-favorable approval rating.
Another reason for GOP optimism: Republican attacks on Golden have landed, tarnishing his numbers with GOP voters who otherwise might be more responsive to moderate messaging. In July, the incumbent was just -13 with Republicans (33% to 46%). Golden now stands at -47 (20% to 67%).
That puts Theriault at a healthy +71 in the ballot test among GOP registrants, with 83% support against 12% for Golden.
He’s tied with Golden among independents; each has 43% support, with 15% undecided. The incumbent was up 52% to 31% in July, with 17% undecided, meaning messaging has worked beyond the Republican base.
And even Democrats are moving, though much more slightly, as Golden’s 89% to 5% lead has shrunk to 84% to 8% inside his own party since July.
Golden has flip-flopped on gun control and other issues, leading to an onslaught of untimely “negative news,” the NRCC notes: 26% of voters are hearing good things about him, while 43% are not.
Will this be enough to flip a seat in a closely divided Congress? That’s the open question with 13 days to go.