AUGUSTA, Maine — Former President Donald Trump led President Joe Biden in an early poll of Maine voters released on Monday that showed an electorate looking unhappy with their likely choices ahead of the November election.
It was a striking result in the first public poll of 2024 pitting the two unpopular politicians against each other in Maine. While the state has not backed a Republican in a presidential race since 1988, Trump won the 2nd Congressional District in 2016 and 2020 and is likely to make a major play for the one Electoral College vote there again this year.
Trump had support from 38 percent of voters to 32 percent for Biden in the online survey conducted between Feb. 6 and Feb. 14 by Pan Atlantic Research, a Portland polling firm. Another 30 percent said they were either backing other candidates or undecided. The survey of 791 likely voters has an error margin of 3.5 percentage points.
Biden’s ominous approval figures did not appear to be hampering other left-of-center politicians on the ballot with him in Maine. U.S. Sen. Angus King, an independent who caucuses with Democrats, had 60 percent favorability in the survey, while U.S. Rep. Jared Golden, a Democrat from the 2nd District, had 55 percent favorability in his conservative-leaning half of Maine.
The president was seen unfavorably by a staggering 61 percent of Mainers in the survey. While he had a net favorability rating of 52 percentage points among Democrats, he was underwater with independents by 34 points and Republicans by 73 points. There were no comparable approval figures for Trump, but recent national polls have had him slightly ahead of Biden.
The only bright spot for the president in Maine was his narrow lead among people who said they were certain to vote. Biden had 40 percent support to 37 percent for Trump among that group, and only 23 percent said they backed another candidate or were undecided.
Trump’s race in the 2nd District along with Golden’s race for a fourth term are expected to be the biggest races in Maine during the 2024 cycle. The centrist congressman has proven durable in past elections, but Republicans see him as vulnerable after he reversed himself to back an assault weapons ban in the wake of the October mass shooting in his home city of Lewiston.
The two Republicans vying for the nomination to face him, state Reps. Austin Theriault of Fort Kent and Mike Soboleski of Phillips, are largely unknown at this point. The Pan Atlantic poll found Theriault, a former NASCAR driver backed by top House Republicans, had 28 percent support among his party’s likely voters to 10 percent for Soboleski.
The eventual nominee will try to draft on lingering support for Trump in the 2nd District. He led Biden there by 20 percentage points in the poll, although Biden had an 8-point lead over Trump in the liberal 1st District. Those totals essentially reversed the 2020 election results, in which Biden won the 1st District by 23 points and Trump won the 2nd by 7 points.
King is seen as a heavy favorite in his race for a third term that would make the 79-year-old the oldest person to ever represent Maine in the Senate. His opponents so far are former state Republican Party Chair Demi Kouzounas and Democrat David Costello of Brunswick.
