Maine voters are looking at the three-way 2014 governor race strategically, according to pollsters for the University of New Hampshire Survey Center in a
poll commissioned by the Portland Press Herald/Maine Sunday Telegram. By "strategically," they mean who has a better chance of beating incumbent tea party Gov. Paul LePage.
Right now, Democrat Rep. Mike Michaud has a four-point edge, within the margin of error. The big number, though, is LePage's. Big in the sense of how small it is—a governor not breaking 40 percent in a poll.
The Democrat presently has a four-point margin over LePage, leading the governor 40 percent to 36 percent in a landline and cellphone survey of 527 likely voters between June 12 and 18. Cutler lags in third place, with 15 percent of respondents saying they’d vote for him if the election were held today. Another 7 percent said they were undecided. Michaud’s lead is within the 4.3 percent margin of error.
LePage isn't breaking 40 percent in the polls at all, according to HuffPost's
poll aggregator. The danger here is Eliot Cutler, the independent, who acted the spoiler in 2010. There's a sense that Mainers recall the disastrous effects of that vote-splitting: they got LePage as their governor.
Michaud is also drawing support from respondents who voted for Cutler during the independent’s second-place finish in 2010. The latter finding suggests that Democrats who bailed on Libby Mitchell as her campaign cratered in the final weeks of the 2010 election are standing with Michaud—at least for now. […]
The governor’s gender disparity is also reflected among respondents who said they plan to vote in the election. Forty-seven percent of women respondents said they would vote for Michaud compared to 27 percent for the governor and 15 percent for Cutler.
Michaud is the best opportunity for Maine to boot LePage, but to do so he has to expand and solidify his lead among those potentially wavering Democrats, and with women. We're trying to help him do that.
So give $3 to help Mauchaud close the deal.