News and Notes

The campaign in the 1st Congressional District is relatively quiet right now, but there is a substantial amount of activity going on behind closed doors. After each enduring contentious primary battles, Charlie Summers and Chellie Pingree will both quickly need to restructure their campaigns and gear up for the fall. The task will be especially difficult for Republican Summers, but if he can raise some serious coin and put together a coordinated message, he might just represent one of the few congressional pickup opportunities that Republicans can point to nationally. The next round of financial reports are due on July 15th, and from prior experience we have to assume that Chellie Pingree will have a strong showing, but the real question is how will Summers perform? He is an attractive candidate for sure, but can he break the string of poor fundraising performances that have plagued Republican candidates in the 1st CD for years?

After a bit of a layoff, it is time to launch this blog into its general election phase. I will be providing a weekly roundup of news and notes from Maine's 1st Congressional District from now until Election Day. This blog, however, is not just meant to be an objective news source. There is far too little investigative reporting in Maine politics, so I will seek to uncover the dirt that the campaigns don't want anyone to see. I will also continue to offer up my views on how the campaigns should strategically proceed. Now, to the news and notes...

It appears that the transition phase at the Summers campaign is already under way. I wanted to take a glance at the campaign's website earlier today, but when I made it to the home page, I discovered that the website is being redesigned. The website that Summers had for the primary was adequate, but it is smart strategy for the campaign to come up with something fresh for the general election. The website is slated to relaunch on Friday.

http://summersforcongress.org/

Last week, I discussed the significance of the staff layoffs at the Portland Press Herald. The Press Herald will be losing its three primary political reporters, as the paper's ownership attempts to steer the paper towards profitability. The political coverage in the Press Herald was often times far from stellar, but it was the most consistent source of mainstream political news in the 1st District. These layoffs, then, are certain to have a detrimental effect on the quality of political news coverage in southern Maine.

Al Diamon broke the news about the Portland Press Herald layoffs, and he has an excellent piece out again this week. His article explores the overall lack of quality in Maine's news media, while also looking at how different media outlets in the state are adjusting to declining revenues. Its definitely worth the read...

http://www.downeast.com/Media-Mutt/July-2008/One-Ugly-Year/

The Associated Press has a story out that talks about Maine as a battleground state this fall. Of course, it touches on the presidential race and then provides a brief summary of the important races happening in the state. But, the interesting aspect of the story is when the reporter looks at grassroots activity that is occurring in the state. As usual, the Democrats are hammering the living daylights out of the Republicans on this front. The state Democratic Party has outraised the Maine GOP by more than a 4-1 margin. They have field staffers in all sixteen Maine counties and they will reportedly be opening up offices around the state.

Unfortunately for candidate Summers, the state Republican Party is far behind the Democrats in organizing. Until recently, at least, the Maine Republican Party has carried only three paid staffers. In the story, Republican Dave Emery claims that the GOP is less reliant on grassroots efforts to turn out voters. While I am not going to dispute the fact that Republican voters tend to be more reliable in turning out to vote than Democrats, it definitely spells trouble for Maine Republicans to see their Democratic counterparts with such a monetary and organizational advantage.

http://www.sunjournal.com/story/271386-3/MaineNews/Maine_acts_as_battleground_state/

The Portland Press Herald has an interesting story about an independent "progressive" group that is launching operations in Maine. The group, the Maine People's Alliance, is seeking to register new voters in the state and turn them out to the polls. While the organization is not officially partisan, it is clearly designed to help increase voter turnout among Democrats and left leaning individuals. According to the story, the Maine People's Alliance plans to mobilize 900 to 1,000 volunteers to make 125,000 telephone calls and knock on 100,000 doors across the state. For a small state such as Maine, that is truly a massive effort. Its not going to create a huge turnout surge for Democrats, but its certainly going to make things that much tougher for Maine Republicans to overcome. The reality is that no comparable organization exists for the Conservative Right in Maine.

http://pressherald.mainetoday.com/story.php?id=196203&ac=PHnws

Another progressive group, Democracy for America, is looking to get involved in Maine this fall. The group recently endorsed Tom Allen's candidacy for the U.S. Senate and Chellie Pingree's candidacy in the 1st Congressional District. Democracy for America will look to steer donations and provide grassroots volunteers to the respective campaigns.

http://www.politickerme.com/jessicaalaimo/1895/progressive-group-backs-allen-pingree

Political Coverage Going from Bad to Worse

In the lead up to the June 10th primary, I often lamented the lack of solid mainstream political coverage in Maine. Despite having a hotly contested Democratic congressional race and a reasonably competitive Republican contest, there was a surprising lack of television time and print space devoted to those two races. Nearly half of the articles about the congressional race that were featured in Maine newspapers were simply cookie cutter profiles of the eight candidates vying for the 1st CD seat. The other articles generally lacked depth, although there was interesting article in the Portland Press Herald from time to time. 

Well, now this week we found out that the Portland Press Herald is making another round of staff layoffs. The political department is going to take a serious hit, with two veteran reporters accepting buyouts from the Press Herald and another reporter being laid off. In addition, the paper will be closing its Washington, DC and Augusta news bureaus. The political beat writers being laid off are Paul Carrier, Kevin Wack, and Jonathan Kaplan. While none of these reporters were fantastic (and Kaplan was almost certainly subpar), they have been writing a large percentage of the political articles that run in Maine newspapers during the past couple of years. Wack, in particular, wrote some stories that effectively highlighted the tension between the different candidates in the 1st CD race.  But now, somehow, the political coverage that was already weak in the mainstream Maine media is about to get worse.  

I would guess that the Press Herald will augment its political coverage in two ways. First, I suspect that you will see the paper running less articles in general. But, of course, the Press Herald cannot just outright eliminate its political coverage because it has lost its most veteran political beat reporters. The paper has already said it will rely more heavily on the Kennebec Journal staff for coverage of state legislative activity in Augusta. For its other political coverage, including the all important 1st CD congressional race, the paper will have to rely on new reporters to write the political stories. The quality of the articles is going to suffer and you will almost certainly see even more poorly constructed, badly researched stories. These reporters are going to be doing cookie cutter stories that do not hold candidates accountable whatsoever. That is not necessarily their fault, but is the way their job is designed. Most likely, they will have no special training in political science and will lack much knowledge about Maine politics. Furthermore, they will be put under additional strain to pump out stories as they have to shoulder an increased workload after all the layoffs at the Press Herald.

The online blogosphere and the public at large is going to have step up and uncover the dirt on these candidates. You can bet a pretty penny that the TV networks and newspapers will not. Personally, I'm ready for the job...

Scontras' Campaign Failures

Coming soon...

Official Finalized Results

It is now Friday, but 8 precincts in the 1st District have still not reported their results.  Those 8 precincts have 26,618 registered voters in them. Still not reporting:

Cumberland County

Baldwin: 1217 registered voters

Gorham Ward 3: 3114 registered voters

Portland Ward 2: 3466 registered voters

Kennebec County

Albion: 1470 registered voters

Vienna: 28 registered voters

York County

Kennebunk: 8687 registered voters

Kittery: 6813 registered voters

Limerick: 1823 registered voters

Final Results

The turnout predictions that I made were not that far off, but slightly overestimated turnout in both primaries. With 97 % of precincts reporting, just over 53,000 voters cast ballots in the Democratic primary, while 33,979 people cast ballots in the Republican primary.  

Democratic Primary:

Chellie Pingree- 23,450 (44.22 %)

Adam Cote- 15,033 (28.35 %)

Michael Brennan- 5,676 (10.70 %)

Ethan Strimling- 5,537 (10.44 %)

Mark Lawrence- 2,610 (4.92 %)

Stephen Meister- 721 (1.36 %)

Republican Primary:

Charlie Summers- 20,346 (59.88 %)

Dean Scontras- 13,633 (40.12 %)

Election Night Coverage

9:26 PM

Democratic Primary-      Chellie Pingree- 2567 (40.51%)

                                          Adam Cote- 1874 (29.57%)
                                          Ethan Strimling- 843 (13.30%)
                                          Michael Brennan- 798 (12.59%)
                                          Mark Lawrence- 169 (2.67%)
                                          Stephen Meister- 86 (1.36%)

Republican Primary-      Charlie Summers- 2070 (55.45%)
                                         Dean Scontras- 1663 (44.55%)

Michael Brennan is performing well in Portland thus far, capturing over 20 % of the vote, higher than Ethan Strimling's total. Mark Lawrence is doing poorly outside of his York County base as expected. Pingree is doing well across the board and she looks like she is in strong position to win.  

***** Update 9:47 PM *****

Pingree's lead is holding well at this point.  She has about 43 % of the vote, Cote has 27 %, Brennan is in third with 12 %, Strimling has just under 12 %, and Lawrence has 4.5 %. Strimling is doing pathetically so far and his vote total does not look like it is going to improve. He badly under performed in Portland and that is supposed to be his base. Most of York County has not reported, so Cote has a chance, but he is pretty far behind at this point. 

Summers has a 56-44 % lead over Dean Scontras right now. His vote tallies in Portland were very solid, but we will have to wait to see if something possibly changes when more of York County and Kennebec County start reporting.

http://www.politickerme.com/jenniferdepaul/1789/me-1-race-summers-cautiously-optimistic

***** Update 10:15 PM *****

A much larger percentage of Cumberland County has reported as compared to York County. Results have not even become to come in for Ogunquit, Old Orchard Beach, Saco, Sanford, Wells, and York. Also, most of Biddeford is still uncounted. Even with those potential pickup opportunities for Cote, the lead that Pingree has accumulated looks pretty insurmountable. She leads Cote by about 2,500 votes right now. Chellie has 40 % of the vote, Cote has 28 %, Brennan and Strimling have 13 %, and Lawrence has about 4 % of the vote.

Summers has widened his lead against Dean Scontras to more than 18 percentage points. He is leading in Cumberland County, Kennebec County, Knox County, and Lincoln County. Scontras leads only in York County and not by much of a margin. It appears that Summers will cruise to victory.

***** Update 11:01 PM *****

This (http://www.politickerme.com/jamespindell/1793/scontras-it-all-about-york-county) was posted on PolitickerME a few minutes ago. Scontras seems to be holding out hope that returns from York County can help him narrow the gap with Charlie Summers. But right now Scontras is only leading in York County by a 54 to 46 % margin, and he has actually lost a couple of towns. Overall, Summers is leading 58 % to 42 % with over two-thirds of precincts reporting.  

Chellie Pingree is absolutely crushing the competition. She has over 15,000 votes, with her nearest competitor Adam Cote sitting at just 9,000 votes. In Knox County, she took a whopping 81 % of the vote and in Lincoln County, she won an impressive 65 % of the vote. Cote strongholds still have not reported in York County, but the numbers are simply not there for him. All he can hope for is to narrow the gap and make Pingree's victory a single digit one. 

***** Update 11:39 PM *****

The Portland Press Herald has called the Democratic race for Chellie Pingree and the Republican race for Charlie Summers. Just a little while ago, Republican candidate Dean Scontras conceded and offered his full support to Summers in the general election. Scontras hinted that he may run for political office again. Perhaps the 2010 gubernatorial race?

I'm done for the night. Tomorrow, I will have analysis on how Summers and Pingree campaigned their way to victory. Also, look for stories on why Dean Scontras and Ethan Strimling performed so poorly. 

Election Predictions

Charlie Summers will best Dean Scontras by a sizeable margin. It will be too hard for Scontras to overcome the high name identification of Summers. This is not to say that it could not have been done, but Scontras had a poorly run campaign. It did not conserve cash and consequently he could not really get his message out to voters.

Prediction: Summers 59 %, Scontras 41 %

The Democratic race is much tougher to predict, but I am going to stick with the frontrunner and pick Chellie Pingree. Along with Ethan Strimling, Pingree should have the best GOTV operation in the 1st CD. Furthermore, she has run the most ads and already has a solid reputation in the district. Adam Cote has put up a spirited challenge and could emerge victorious if the liberal candidates all split the votes fairly evenly, but I doubt that will happen. Mark Lawrence and Michael Brennan have run uninspired campaigns and will probably be stuck in the single digits. They are fortunate that no public polls have been released, otherwise they would probably perform even more poorly because people would feel like they were wasting a vote. So, to recap, I believe Pingree will win on the strength of her experience, organization, and financial expenditures, but only be a small margin. Adam Cote will finish a strong second and Ethan Strimling could challenge him for that spot if he slightly over performs.

Prediction: Pingree 30.5 %, Cote 28 %, Strimling 24 %, Lawrence 11 %, Brennan 6 %, Meister 0.5 %

Expected Voter Turnout

The Secretary of State was expecting about 30-35 % of registered voters to cast ballots today. I have listed below the latest figures available from the Secretary of State's Office on voter registration in the 1st CD.

1st CD Voter Registration

Republicans- 138,893
Democrats- 156,331
Independents- 189,736

Total: 499,194

Democrats in the 1st District are highly energized this year, both because of national trends and because of the intense congressional primary. In 1996, when Tom Allen narrowly won a primary victory in the 1st District congressional race, more than 50,000 people cast ballots in the Democratic primary. I would expect an even higher number to have voted today. I think you will see about 35-40 % of all Democratic registered voters in CD1 to vote.  

Republicans are less energized nationally, but they still have a competitive primary going on today between Dean Scontras and Charlie Summers.  During the past several years, there have been uncontested primaries and about 30,000 people have voted in the Republican primary.  In 1994, when there was a contested primary that Jim Longley Jr. won, roughly 40,000 people voted. I would expect a higher turnout than recent primaries, but less percentage wise than the Democrats.  

Independents can vote in either primary, but I would expect that anywhere from 2/3 to 3/4 will opt to take a Democratic primary ballot. More independents in Maine tend to be Democratic leaning and the presence of Adam Cote, a moderate Democrat, should make that trend even more marked. In addition, the Democratic primary has more candidates and has been more hotly contested. More money has been spent by Democratic candidates, appealing to more voters. The Republican brand is also unpopular right now.  

Projecting this all out I would expect about 40,000 people to vote in the Republican primary today. For the Democrats, I am going to predict that about 60,000 people will vote in that primary.  

Voting Tomorrow

Election day is nearly here.  Most polling locations will open at either 7:00 AM or 8:00 AM depending upon where you live. The polls will close statewide at 8:00 PM...

Turnout is expected to be high tomorrow, especially in the 1st CD, which has two highly contested primaries for Tom Allen's congressional seat. There is also a Democratic primary race for the U.S. Senate, as well as several state legislative primaries.  

Predictions will be forthcoming sometime during the day tomorrow. I will offer my estimates for voter turnout and will make predictions in the Republican and Democratic 1st CD race. Expect a squeaker in one of the two contests...

Political Roundup

Ethan Strimling was endorsed by the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) this weekend. According to a campaign press release, the union has about 3,000 members in the state of Maine. The endorsement was something nice for the Strimling campaign to tout, but in reality it will have little effect. The endorsement was made during the final weekend of the campaign and therefore there is little time to mobilize AFSCME members on Strimling's behalf. If made a couple of weeks earlier, the endorsement could have had a real impact.  

http://www.ethan08.com/n/afscme-endorses-strimling-his-support-working-fami/

The Credit Union National Association has made a large investment in the 1st CD race backing Adam Cote. The group, which represents the national credit union industry, has made $ 112,000 in independent expenditures on Cote's behalf thus far. There has been substantial criticism by rival campaigns of these independent expenditures and the PAC money that Cote has received.  The Cote campaign has implicitly suggested that it has not sought out PAC money and that has simply come to them as a result of agreement on the issues. 

It is important to recognize, however, that Cote received nearly $ 39,000 in PAC contributions since April 1st. In addition, the spokesman for the Credit Union National Association told the Portland Press Herald that it only makes independent expenditures on behalf of one or two candidates per election cycle. Considering these facts, it seems pretty clear that the Cote campaign must have been actively seeking these outside contributions.  He has received much more PAC money than most of the other candidates in the race, and yet he is not the presumed frontrunner.  The only way the Cote campaign could have amassed all of this PAC money is by actively soliciting and meeting with the groups. Here is a link to the story...

http://pressherald.mainetoday.com/story.php?id=192609&ac=

CQ Politics has a nice overview of the 1st CD race in Maine. Anthony Corrado, a superb politcal science professor at Colby College, told CQ Politics that Ethan Strimling has not capitalized on the opportunity to challenge Pingree. I tend to agree with this view... I think that Strimling will perform well, but not well enough to actually challenge Pingree for a victory. The article zeroes in on Adam Cote and Chellie Pingree as the two viable contenders on the Democratic side and suggests that Charlie Summers is well positioned to pick up the Republican nod.

http://www.cqpolitics.com/wmspage.cfm?docID=news-000002891310&parm1=5&cpage=1

Secretary of State Matt Dunlap is projecting a turnout of between 30-35 % for tomorrow's primary. That would be much a higher turnout than is typical for a primary election. I will have my own projection on turnout posted on the blog tomorrow...

http://pressherald.mainetoday.com/story.php?id=192728&ac=

The Portland Press Herald also had a story about voter outreach in yesterday's paper. The story talks about how close recent contested primaries have been in the 1st District and how voter outreach has been key. When Tom Allen won the Democratic primary in 1996, for example, he bested his rival candidate by less than 2,000 votes. Primaries always have lower turnout than general election, and for that reason voter outreach is more important than it will be in November. If a particular campaign has a top notch GOTV operation, it could make a big difference in their overall vote total on Tuesday. I would expect that Chellie Pingree will have a superior turnout effort, as compared to newcomer Adam Cote, and that could be the difference between a win and a loss for her.

http://pressherald.mainetoday.com/story.php?id=192702&ac=

Media Advertising on the Republican Side

The Republican field in the 1st District has raised considerably less money than the Democratic one. Political newcomer Dean Scontras has raised about $ 230,000 and has loaned his campaign nearly an additional $ 100,000. Charlie Summers, who only returned from Iraq a month ago, has raised about $ 200,000, but retained more cash on hand as of May 21st.  

The Scontras campaign made a decision to not purchase any advertising time on television. In a recent Portland Press Herald article, Scontras aide Dan Schuberth said that the campaign decided to focus on radio advertising and direct mail. This is absolutely a poor decision by the Scontras campaign and speaks to the complete mismanagement that has plagued his campaign. Unlike all the other campaigns, the Scontras campaign did not build up its cash reserves during the 4th quarter of last year and the 1st quarter of this year. In fact, it had a staggering 87 % burn rate in the October 1-December 31, 2007 fundraising period.  

Airing television ads was absolutely critical to Scontras' success in this primary. As a political newcomer, Scontras desperately needed to boost his name identification. Radio advertisements and direct mail are great tools, but not using television was a mistake for the campaign. On May 21st, Scontras reported just $ 7,000 cash on hand remaining, even though his media buy and direct mail spending only totaled about $ 45,000. Unless he makes additional loans to his campaign, he has virtually no money left to spend.  

Charlie Summers is not spending substantially more than Scontras, but he simply does not have to. As an experienced politician in Maine, Summers already has relatively high name identification in the 1st District. As of May 21st, Summers also retained a significant amount of cash, which he has probably plowed into additional advertising time and direct mail.  Below I have listed the media buys purchased by the Summers campaign:

May 13- Purchased Media Buy of $ 8,975 
May 19- Purchased Media Buy of $ 5,885
May 21- Purchased Media Buy of $ 42,500

So, by May 21st, the Summers campaign had purchased nearly $ 60,000 of advertising time on radio and television. With more than $ 50,000 still in its coffers at the time, the campaign may have purchased more time since then. The campaign has been airing one ad, which effectively shows the breadth of Summers' experience. It touts his experience as a state senator, as the regional director of the Small Business Administration, and as a U.S. military serviceman.  The ad was produced by Stevens, Reed, Curcio, and Potholm, a top notch media production outfit that created the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth ads in 2004. 

One must wonder how the Scontras campaign managed to waste so much money. Dean Scontras is a very articulate candidate with great ideas and a great vision, but his campaign has put him in a position where it will be very hard to win the primary and impossible to win the general election. I will look tomorrow at how the Scontras campaign got into to its current financial mess and what could have been done differently.