Maine is a state in the United States with a population of over 1.3 million citizens. It has two U.S. Senators, Susan Collins and Angus King, and two Congressional Representatives, Chellie Pingree and Jared Golden. It also has a Governor, Janet Mills, who was elected in 2018. Maine has an active political scene with a mix of liberal and conservative-leaning candidates running for local office in recent years. The state holds both Democratic and Republican primaries to determine which party candidates will represent their respective parties in general elections for positions like mayor, county commissioner, state legislature seats or even U.S. Congress representatives. Local offices usually have nonpartisan elections as well where all residents of the city or county regardless of their political affiliations can cast their votes to elect officials that focus on local issues important to them such as taxes, community development or infrastructure projects.
The political climate in Maine is somewhat liberal.
In Maine 53.1% of the people voted for the Democratic Party in the last presidential election, 44.0% voted for the Republican Party, and the remaining 2.9% voted for an Independent Party.
In the last Presidential election, Maine remained moderately Democratic, 53.1% to 44.0%.
Maine voted Democratic in the previous six Presidential elections.
The BestPlaces liberal/conservative index
Maine is somewhat liberal.
The BestPlaces liberal/conservative index is based on recent voting in national elections, federal campaign contributions by local residents, and consumer personality profiles.
VoteWord™
Displaying 20 years of Presidential voting, visualized in one word.
Maine, Maine: d d D D d d
How It Works:
Here at BestPlaces, we were looking at the voting patterns since the 2000 election and realized that we could express the results of each election as one letter. R if the Republican Party candidate won, D for the Democrat and I for the Independent. The six elections (2000, 2004, 2008, 2012, 2016, 2020) would be expressed as six-letter word (R R D R R R).
Then we went a little further and added the dimension of magnitude. If the difference of victory was greater than 10 percent, the letter is upper case, and lower case if the difference was less than 10 percent. This allows us to see interesting voting patterns at just a glance.
Here's the VoteWord for Iowa d r d d r r. In the last six elections the state has been closely contested, voting narrowly for the Republican Party candidate in 2016 and 2020 after voting for the Democratic Party in 2008 and 2012. Virginia (r r d d d D) has voted for the Democratic Party in the last four elections.
Individual Campaign Contributions in Maine
In the last 4 years (2018-2021), there were 126,392 contributions totaling $17,373,527 to the Democratic Party and liberal campaigns, averaging $137 per contribution.
In the last 4 years, there were 13,435 contributions totaling $4,438,801 to the Republican Party and conservative campaigns, averaging $330 per contribution.
(source: Federal Election Commission)