PORTLAND, Maine - Anew poll released today continues to show a close race for governor. Republican Gov. Paul LePage led with 39.3 percent support, followed by Democratic Congressman Mike Michaud, with 33.6 percent, and independent Eliot Cutler at 19.5 percent. Nearly 8 percent of voters are undecided. One political science professor says other aspects of the survey suggest that LePage may be gaining in the last month of the campaign.
Even Pan-Atlantic SMS pollsters concede that their most recent poll doesn't look a lot different than a similar survey conducted in April. But University of Maine Political Science Professor Mark Brewer says a review of the poll's cross tabs suggests one obvious outcome. "Paul LePage has got to be looking at this and feeling pretty good," he says.
Alex Willette, a LePage campaign spokesman, says Republicans are upbeat, but are still reciting a refrain familiar to all candidates. "The only poll that really matters is Election Day and we are going to be working hard," Willette says. "The governor is going to be meeting as many voters as possible."
It's a strategy that seems to be paying off. The poll of 400 Mainers contacted by telephone - both cell and land lines - during the last week of September, factored in a 4.9 percent margin of error. Brewer says what's remarkable about LePage's numbers is not just his slim lead, but also his favorablity rating, which is now nearly 50 percent; meanwhile, his unfavorabilty is down to just 34 percent.
Brewer is also struck by the poll's suggestion that if Cutler were to drop out, the number of undecided voters multiplies by more than three times - to 25 percent. LePage would only receive 26 percent of the vote and Michaud would win with 48 percent.
"I've thought all along that if it were a Michaud-LePage, or for that matter a Cutler-LePage, that LePage would be on the short end of the stick by a relatively substantial margin and he's not -- at least according to this poll," Brewer says.
At the Cutler campaign, Crystal Canney says the poll's results are consistent with the momentum the independent is sensing at this moment. "We're not surprised by these poll results," she says. "It confirms what our internal poll said just a week and a half ago. Equally as important, we're seeing Mike Michaud come down, and we're going up."
Brewer says it remains to be seen whether or not this year's election will be a replay of 2010, when Cutler surged during the last weeks of the campaign to come within 2 percentage points of defeating LePage.
"If there's another poll that comes out and follows this, and Cutler's sniffing around 20 again, then, boy, that could be the start of just exactly what you described - a 2010 repeat," Brewer says.
Brewer says Michaud is the real loser in the Pan-Atlantic poll, because he seems to be losing ground - not to Cutler, but to LePage.
"There are 13 percent of Democratic voters saying that if the election were held today, that they would vote for Paul LePage, only 60 percent for Mike Michaud and 17 percent for Cutler," Brewer said. "The fact that there are 13 percent of Democrats saying that they would vote for Paul LePage is pretty surprising to me, and if I were Mike Michaud's campaign, I would be a little alarmed by that."
But the Michaud campaign is not alarmed. Campaign spokesman David Farmer says it's still a tight two-man race between Michaud and LePage. He doesn't think that Cutler is gaining ground.
"The Pan-Atlantic SMS Poll that came out today is a bit of an outlier," Farmer says. "If you look historically, he consistently has the independent candidates higher than any other poll."
At Pan-Atlantic SMS Group, President Patrick Murphy says his polls have had Cutler higher than others. And he thinks Cutler's playing a significant role in an election about an incumbent, rather than a horse race for an open seat, as was the case in 2010. But could Michaud ever drop fast enough in the remaining weeks of the election for Cutler to eek out a victory?
"Well that's the $64,000 question," Murphy says. "And I keep coming back to the point that, as long as you have two opposition candidates taking him on, he's probably in the cat bird's seat."
Murphy will release the second half of his poll next week on the state's two congressional districts and the race for the U.S. Senate.