Maine Senate: The race at a glance

Independent former Maine Gov. Angus King is the heavy favorite to win retiring Sen. Olympia Snowe&#039;s seat.

(Image credit: Facebook.com/Angus King)

last updated 8 January 2015

Maine has a long tradition of sending moderate Republicans to Washington. But when Sen. Olympia Snowe (R) announced her retirement, Democrats sensed a ripe pick-up opportunity. Then former Gov. Angus King, a popular independent with close ties to Snowe, jumped into the race, and top-tier Democrats turned skittish and opted out. Republicans chose Charlie Summers, the secretary of state, as their nominee, while Democrats picked state Sen. Cynthia Dill. Most observers believe King, the odds-on favorite, would caucus with Senate Democrats, but King has refused to be pinned down, putting Democrats in a "pickle," says Aaron Blake at The Washington Post. The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC) has declined to endorse the low-polling Dill, and it can't really endorse King, so it is putting money into ads attacking Summers. That makes King "for all intents and purposes, the Democratic nominee." But Summers is closing the once-yawning polling gap with King, and if that continues and the actual Democrat, Dill, starts rising in the polls, Maine could once again be sending a Republican to Washington.

THE CANDIDATES

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

The Maine race seems more strategic than ideological. Republicans have dumped more than $2 million into ads attacking King — who has spent his post gubernatorial life as a university lecturer, lawyer, and wind-energy company owner — as a wealthy, out-of-touch crony capitalist who was profligate as governor. GOP groups are also spending some money boosting Dill, with one TV ad touting her as a "Democrat you can feel good about." The DSCC and centrist group Americans Elect are attacking Summers as a conservative partisan, and boosting King, whose poll numbers have dropped amid the GOP ad onslaught. Dill is decrying all the outside money being poured into the race by her opponents and their allies. Ideologically, Dill is a liberal Democrat; King supports ObamaCare, raising taxes to erase the deficit, and a constitutional amendment to outlaw super PACs, but opposes Obama's financial reform bill; Summers signed a no-tax-increase pledge and wants to cut regulations and federal spending.

Subscribe to The Week

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

Sign up for Today's Best Articles in your inbox