Maine Miscellany

-Maine voters are leaning towards legalizing gay marriage, but it looks like it will be probably be close. 52% of voters say that they plan to vote yes on Question 1 to 44% who are opposed. When we ask simply whether or not voters think same sex marriage should be legal, 52% say it should be while 40% think it should not. Our experience in polling these kinds of issues is that undecided usually means no so this really should be seen as a toss up with gay marriage supporters barely over the 50% mark- there's not a lot of room for error in the final seven weeks.

There's a pretty significant gender gap on this issue with women supporting Question1 58-38, while men oppose it 50/47. There's a major divide along generational lines as well with voters under 65 support it by a 56/41 margin, but those over 65 opposing it 53/41.

-Paul LePage continues to be one of the most unpopular Governors in the country with only 37% of voters approving of him to 52% who disapprove.  He trails a generic Democratic opponent for reelection by a 48/40 margin, including 45/38 with independents. Of course LePage got elected in 2010 with less than 40% of the vote so if there's a strong independent candidate and that person and the Democratic candidate cannibalize each other enough LePage could continue to be really unpopular and get himself reelected anyway. Probably related to voters' unhappiness with LePage, Democrats lead the generic legislative ballot in the state by a 48/37 margin.

-Maine continues to have, along with Wyoming and Vermont, one of the few states in the country where both Senators have a 60% or more approval rating. Olympia Snowe's approval rating as she prepares to leave office is 63% with 25% of voters disapproving of her. She is most popular with Democrats (70/20), followed by independents (64/24), then Republicans (54/32).

Susan Collins is only slightly less popular than her senior colleague. 60% of voters give her good marks to 26% who disapprove. Unless Collins retires there doesn't appear to be much point in Democrats trying to seriously contest her seat in 2014. She leads a generic Democratic opponent 59-25, taking 34% of the Democratic vote and leading 64-17 with independents.

Full results here

Comments

[Ben]

I think there is very good evidence that PPP nails the pro-SSM number to within 1 percentage point. This was shown most recently in NC in May. All undecideds need to be allocated to the anti-SSM position, and then you get a very accurate result.

However, I am puzzled at the drop in the pro-SSM number in this poll. There have been no major external events that are likely to have moved the needle, only the pro-SSM side has been on TV, and the pro-SSM side clearly has the more active campaign going. Does this suggest that the pro-SSM campaign might be doing something to hurt itself?

[SC Guy]

We have to be honest with ourselves: polling understates public opposition to homosexuality and same-sex marriage. Even PPP's final poll understated the final margin in North Carolina by a whole 6 percentage points so a 10 point gap should be encouraging for Maine's foes of same-sex marriage.

What's interesting this year is that 4 very blue states are holding marriage votes (Washington, Minnesota, Maryland and Maine). Conservatives have more than a fighting chance in 3 out of those 4 states and even in Washington, where the polling is bleak, there is still a chance conservatives will prevail.

So what does this mean? In spite of national polling suggesting that a small majority of Americans support same-sex marriage (which is obviously not true), it's pretty clear that the real flashpoints in the culture war are being waged in the blue states, not the purple states, let alone the red states. It's by no means settled that gay marriage is a blue state vs red state thing, at least not yet.