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...