PORTLAND, Maine - Like two other polls released in the past week, a Critical Insights poll shows a close race between Republican Gov. Paul LePage and his Democratic challenger, Rep. Mike Michaud. Independent Eliot Cutler is a distant third.
The poll is based telephone interviews with 606 randomly selected likely voters across Maine between Sept. 24 - 30. It shows LePage with 39 percent support and Michaud with 36 percent, a statistical dead heat within the poll's margin of error of 4 percentage points. The survey found Cutler with 21 percent support. The figures include voters who say they are "definitely," "probably" or "leaning toward" voting for a candidate.
The poll is similar to two others released in the past week, the first by Pan-Atlantic SMS, with showed LePage with a slight lead over Michaud, 39.3 percent to 33.6 percent, with a margin of error of 4.9 percentage points. That poll had Cutler at 19.5 percent.
The second poll, released today by the Bangor Daily News/Ipsos Public Affairs, found Michaud with an edge over LePage, 42 percent to 36 percent, with Cutler polling at 16 percent.
The BDN/Ipsos online poll surveyed 1004 people, including 903 registered voters, 540 of whom were deemed likely to vote, from Oct. 6 - 12. It's margin of error is 3.5 percent overall, 3.8 percent for registered voters and 4.8 percent for likely voters.
