By Michael Shepherd - April 26, 2022 Was this newsletter forwarded to you? Sign up.
Good morning from Augusta. The Maine Legislature has left the State House until May 9. Here's your soundtrack.
What we're watching today
A subtle policy shift would broaden Maine's primary electorate in a key 2024 election. We are always thinking about the next election on the Bangor Daily News politics team. We are doing more thinking after the Maine Legislature funded a long-approved bill to further open primaries to unenrolled voters and sent it to Gov. Janet Mills' desk on Monday. If the governor signs it, the measure would take effect ahead of the 2024 election. Maine already allows unenrolled voters to enroll in a party on the same day to vote in a primary, but this bill would make it easier by allowing them to pick a primary to vote in during each election cycle. It keeps Maine on a list of more than two dozen states with either open or semi-open primaries. The election in two years could be a massive one for Maine, which is tracking to have a open U.S. Senate seat with independent Sen. Angus King mulling retirement. There could also be a competitive presidential primary or two if either President Joe Biden or former President Donald Trump do not make good on promises to run again. Maine's pool of nearly 360,000 independent voters is the second-largest voting group here behind only the Democrats. They are a bloc in name only. Historic polling in New Hampshire, which has primary laws similar to those Maine would be switching to, has shown 45 percent of independents consistently vote Democratic and 40 percent vote Republican. It leaves 15 percent truly up for grabs. These independents are a key part of the primary electorate there, making up 43 percent of 2020 Democratic presidential primary voters, according to CNN exit polling. They do not necessarily favor more moderate candidates, though. Progressive Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders narrowly won their backing in New Hampshire, beating out the more moderate Pete Buttigieg. That was effectively the same way regular Democrats voted. New Hampshire gets huge buzz for its first-in-the-nation presidential primary, which saw record turnout on the Democratic side two years ago. In a state with roughly the same population as Maine, its primary electorate was more than 40 percent larger. Easier access for independent voters explains only some of that gap because of New Hampshire's unique advantages. King is not expected to make a formal decision until year's end. Until he bows out, high-profile Maine Democrats and Republicans who would like his seat should remain in a behind-the-scenes mode. Independent voters may not behave much differently than party voters. They still could play an outsized role in a close race or a scenario in which one party has a competitive primary and the other does not. Throw in ranked-choice voting and we are going to have some of the most interesting electoral breakdowns in the nation.
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What we're reading
— Democrats in the Maine Legislature kept a sweeping tribal sovereignty bill alive on Monday they took a big step toward winding down State House work for 2022. The party has been split on whether to send it to Mills' desk after the Democratic governor threatened to veto it and an associated compromise with the tribes if the measure reaches her desk. — Maine has miles of discontinued dirt roads that often stoke fights between those who live there and those who use them for recreation. One person who tracks them has a map with 250 pushpins in it to represent problem roads rooted in a history of land-use policies that brought unintended consequences. — Ten people have been killed under suspicious circumstances in Washington County since January 2020, making it the Maine county with the most homicides during that time despite having just over 2 percent of the population. An official there said the region is "counting the days" between killings now.
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Follow along today
3 p.m. Mills will speak at a seafood industry innovation event at the Roux Institute at Northeastern University in Portland. Register for the event.
📷Lead photo: Howard Farr wears a face covering as he double checks his general election ballot, Tuesday, Nov. 2, 2021, in South Portland. (AP photo by Robert F. Bukaty)
