By Michael Shepherd - July 31, 2023 Was this newsletter forwarded to you? Sign up.
Good morning from Augusta. The Daily Brief will be off on Tuesday, Aug. 1, while I take a day off. Here's your soundtrack.
📷 President Joe Biden speaks at Auburn Manufacturing Inc. on Friday before he signs an executive order to encourage companies to manufacture new inventions in the United States. (AP photo by Susan Walsh)
What we're watching today
The president made revealing remarks about how he views Maine. President Joe Biden spent only about five hours in the state on Friday between his landing at the Brunswick airport, an Auburn speech focused on manufacturing and a high-dollar barn fundraiser in a tony part of Freeport. He still gave revealing look at how he looks at Maine: as somewhat of an antidote to national polarization. That is something that is historically true but seems to be less true now. It is also something that threatens Biden's presidency given his low approval ratings entering the 2024 campaign. None of his remarks were more revealing on this front than those he made at the outdoor fundraiser at the home of Joe and Carol Wishcamper, where the Democrat said he had always viewed the state as "a virtuous place." After his speech, he said he talked briefly with a state representative. He noted Maine had just passed paid family and medical leave, and she said she was a Republican who voted against. But they still had a civil conversation, and he called many Maine's elected officials "decent, honorable people." "So, I think of Maine like I used to think of my state, where everybody knows everybody," he said, according to a White House transcript of an event witnessed by a national pool reporter. "And, you know, there's an old joke: You know, be careful what you say, they may be related." The intimacy of New England politics is an old trope, and it has long been most present in the national consciousness around the New Hampshire presidential primaries. The comments are a reminder that he was elected to the Senate in 1972, a bygone era in which Maine Sen. Edmund S. Muskie was one of the nation's most powerful Democrats after helping flip a Republican state. Of all Mainers, Biden probably has the greatest ties with Muskie. He has called him a mentor on environmental issues, and the senator urged Biden to take his Senate seat after his first wife and child were killed in a post-election car crash. That plea "mattered" and Muskie went out of his way to spend time with Biden, the president told the fundraiser crowd. More than 50 years later, Biden is an embattled president with approval ratings sitting in the low 40s. Crossover support is still an important element of Maine politics, as we have seen in recent congressional races, but the north-south divide in our politics is more pronounced than ever right now. That was evidenced by Biden's 2020 victory in Maine. While he won the state by 9 percentage points overall, it came behind huge support in the 1st Congressional District and despite a 7-point loss in the 2nd District, which was won for the second consecutive time by former President Donald Trump. Despite his unprecedented criminal charges and potentially more on the way, Trump is lapping his rivals in a crowded Republican primary for the right to take on Biden, according to a New York Times-Siena College poll released Monday. Biden sees himself as an antidote to polarization. His opponents think he is a participant in it. Either way, he must deal with it in Maine and beyond.
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News and notes
📷 President Joe Biden gets into his motorcade after arriving at Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland after a trip to South Carolina to discuss his economic agenda on July 6, 2023. (AP photo by Evan Vucci)
📊 The Maine senator on the 2024 ballot maintains high approval. ◉ The state's two U.S. senators held their high and low approval marks in polling from the second quarter of this year released by Morning Consult on Monday. ◉ Sen. Angus King, I-Maine, who caucuses with Democrats and is up for a third term on next year's ballot, was the seventh-most popular senator with a 62 percent approval rating, while Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, had the third-highest disapproval rating at 50 percent against 43 percent approval. ◉ It confirms King's commanding position going into next year. There has been little to no chatter about a potential Republican opponent to date, despite a conservative focus on him in February when a list of Twitter accounts that his 2018 campaign flagged as "suspicious" was made public. ◉ The political stakes for Collins are less certain. She remains the go-to member of the Maine delegation for her spot as the top Senate Republican appropriator and is not on the ballot for three more years. Once the state's most popular politician, her approval fell sharply before her last run in 2020. She still won by a convincing margin over Democrat Sara Gideon. 🖊️ The governor signs some of the key bills of this year. ◉ Gov. Janet Mills announced Friday that she put her signature on several bills advanced by lawmakers as they wound down work for the year last week, including the modernization of Maine's "bottle bill" and increasing salaries for the next Legislature. The full list.
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