Maine’s 2nd District Congressional race less contested amid a highly contentious Senate battle and dead-locked Presidential race

Freshman Congressman Jared Golden (D) appears to be well-poised to win his re-election bid to represent Maine’s 2nd Congressional District— facing minimal contention from his Re- publican challenger Dale Crafts (R).

A dynamic starkly contrasting last cycle, where Maine’s 2nd District House race was among the most ex- pensive and closely watched nationwide. The heated race eventually culminated in Golden’s controversial ranked-choice voting win, as he became the first member of Congress elected by this method and the first challenger to unseat an incumbent in Maine’s 2nd District since 1916.

This time, public opinion polling appears to show a fairly convincing lead for Golden matched with a lop- sided cash advantage, and more prevalent ad buys for the Democratic incumbent– a critical indicator of whether a race will be close.

However, Crafts, a businessman and Lisbon resident, insists that the race will tighten with just under a month to go until election day on Nov. 3. “I was in the same boat” before July’s three-way Republican primary, he emphasized, a primary in which he bore little name recognition and was outspent by his opponents. “The numbers are going to close fast,” he said in a statement to The Portland Herald.

A mid-September survey conducted by The New York Times and the Siena College Research Institute showed Golden leading by a sizable 56% to Craft’s 37% with 6% undecided– a 19 point mar- gin for Golden well outside the survey’s 0.5% margin of error.

A lopsided picture match- ing a recent Colby College survey showed an even bleaker position for Crafts, who was endorsed by President Trump back in August. Golden leads by a commanding 56% to Crafts 33%– a 23 point margin for Golden well beyond the survey’s 3.4% margin of error.

Things don’t appear much better for Crafts when assessing both candidates’ media exposure, a crucial lifeline for a challenger seek- ing to unseat an incumbent with relatively high name recognition. Between Labor Day and Oct. 1 this year, a vital stretch for political

campaigns and TV advertising places Golden at a further advantage, airing favorable ads five times as often as his challenger, ac- cording to Wesleyan Media Project figures.

Overall spending significantly lags last cycle’s, with advertisers dropping only around $888,000 on the race, compared to a staggering 12 million-dollar figure in the 2018 midterms. Of the 3,418 running TV ads, only 591 were supporting Crafts com- pared to 2,827 for Golden, a nearly 1:5 ratio favoring the Democratic incumbent.

As the campaign enters the final weeks with early voting set to begin this week statewide, there is little time for any meaningful changes to the state of the race. Such a dynamic comes amid a nationwide general election whose tone has been firmly set by a beleaguered incumbent President attempting to bolster his re-election bid. His re-election bid has been marred by renewed scrutiny for his response to COVID-19, a disease that has claimed the lives of over 200,000 Americans. This is coupled with a widely un- popular response to civil unrest surrounding police brutality and racism nation- wide and an ailing economy

whose recovery has slowed in recent weeks. Such a confluence of events defining the national climate is set to affect Republicans in critical races down the ballot.

“We know the only numbers that really matter are the results on Election Day,” Golden’s campaign manager, Margaret Reynolds under- scored in a recent prepared statement. “But we have reason to be confident heading into October.”

At the end of June, Golden, a Lewiston resident, accrued roughly $2.2 million for his campaign. In comparison, Crafts cited to have around $34,000, plus $87,000 self- financed per officially cited campaign figures.

Although neither opponent has yet formally dis- closed their third-quarter fundraising tallies to the Federal Election Commission, Golden’s campaign said it raised an additional $1.8 million between July and October. Crafts’ campaign has yet to comment.

This sharply contrasts a hotly contested and expensive US Senate election garnering nationwide attention, where Maine Speaker of the House Sara Gideon (D) is running to unseat four- term incumbent Senator Susan Collins.

This contested Senate battle occurs amid a tight race between Former Vice President Joe Biden and incumbent President Donald Trump districtwide, as both candidates pursue Maine’s 2nd Congressional District’s electoral vote. Trump carried

by 10 points in 2016, flipping it from an 8 point margin for Obama in 2012. Biden seeks a clean sweep across Maine, a key battleground state, along with Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania, while Trump attempts to fend off any intrusions.

~Aaron Mills `24