With the filing deadline of June 1, it’s not clear whether a record number of Maine independents will qualify to seek office this year. But many of them feel they have an advantage, even though they have to work harder to get elected.
By their very nature, independents are a diverse group ranging in philosophy from more conservative to strongly progressive. And they face several obstacles in getting elected over party nominees.
(ExplainMaine: Why is Maine so Politically Independent?)
Ron Schmidt, a professor of political science at the University of Southern Maine, says party nominees have some built-in advantages, such as get-out-the-vote campaigns run by the parties and independent advertising for candidates by party committees. And he says the parties spend a lot of effort communicating with their members as part of their fundamental goal.
“Who can get their voters to the polls. The parties have infrastructure to do that. I’m registered with one of the two major parties and I say for the last four months I get more emails from that political party than I get from anybody else,” he says.
Mike Franz, a government professor at Bowdoin College, says independents not only have to mount their own voter identification and get-out-the-vote efforts, they have to try to overcome party expenditures on behalf of party candidates.
“The party might send out mailings that lists all the candidates in the region for the Legislature, the State House or the state Senate urging voters to vote for those candidates, and that will be independent of what the candidate him or herself spends,” he says.
Franz says with some voters, simply having a D or an R next to the name on the ballot helps a party candidate because of a voter’s identification with one of the major parties. Voters enrolled in a major party vote in higher numbers than voters not enrolled in a party.
Independent state Rep. Kent Ackley of Monmouth says while all that is true, he has found being an independent has an advantage with politics at the State House and in Washington, both marked by partisan gridlock.
“I knocked on a lot of doors, and when people met me at the door and said, ‘Hey, what party are you from?’ and I said, ‘I am not part of a party, I’m an independent.’ It doesn’t matter who you are, you get the invitation to come have a cup of coffee,” he says.
Ackley is seeking re-election this year and he says the inability of the Republicans and Democrats to work together in the Legislature, adjourning without resolving many important issues, will help independents.
Noah Cobb of Berwick, who’s running for the first time for the House, says the message from voters as he campaigns door to door is clear.
“People are tired of the Republicans and the Democrats. All you have to do is knock on a few doors and say, ‘I’m running as an independent,’ and you will see how many people are just fed up with what they already have. People that are Republicans, that are Democrats, say the system is broken,” he says.
Cobb says in a House race, old fashioned door-to-door campaigning is what really reaches the voters.
Terry Hayes, the state treasurer and a candidate for governor as an independent, says social media and the gridlock caused by severe partisanship are changing campaigns and the way voters can be swayed.
“Two hundred and fifty some odd bills here, left when the Legislature went home. I mean, is that effective governing? I don’t see the point of running really hard for elective office and then not doing what I was elected to do,” she says.
Hayes, a former Democrat who served in House leadership, says lawmakers have become too partisan and too concerned with elections rather than with governing. She acknowledges party candidates have historically had an advantage by being affiliated with a party, but with voter dissatisfaction with parties and the advent of social media tools to reach voters outside the old party mechanisms, she believes that will change this election.
But Franz says polarization can also help party candidates.
“Polarization is both an advantage for parties in the sense of mobilizing their supporters, easier to get Democrats to vote when they feel like they need to go after the Republican Party and vice versa,” he says.
Both Franz and Schmidt stress that in state legislative races, there are about 9,000 people in a House district and 40,000 in a Senate district. They say it’s much easier for any candidate running in those contests to sell themselves door to door and through social media than for congressional or statewide candidates.
Both caution it is early in the campaign season, and despite strenuous efforts by candidates, most voters won’t focus on election until the fall.
This story was originally published May 22, 2018 at 4:37 p.m. ET.
