Poll: Trump Takes the Lead in Maine’s Second District

President Donald Trump took the lead in Maine’s second congressional district, according to a poll from the Bangor Daily News, indicating a shift the president’s way in a battleground state that could prove decisive in the presidential election.

Trump’s eight-point lead over his Democrat opponent, former Vice President Joe Biden, is outside the survey’s 6.2 percent margin of error in the second district. The poll finds Trump at 49 percent with Biden at 41 percent.

The survey was conducted between Sept. 25 and Oct. 4, and includes a sample size in the second district of 234 likely voters.

Statewide, Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) seems to have also rebounded somewhat as she trails Democrat candidate Sara Gideon by only a point. Meanwhile, in the battleground House race in the second district, incumbent Rep. Jared Golden (D-ME) is outperforming GOP challenger Dale Crafts by a wide margin — a sign that Mainers are leaning toward incumbents across the board, regardless of party.

Maine is one of two states — the other is Nebraska — that awards its presidential electoral college votes to the winner of the congressional district instead of a statewide lump sum winner. In 2016, Trump won Maine’s second district and its electoral vote.

This time around, depending on how close things get elsewhere in the country, Maine’s second district could become decisive in determining the outcome. If Trump holds Georgia, Texas, Arizona, North Carolina, Ohio, Florida, and Iowa, along with all the deep red states, that would put him at 259 electoral votes. If Trump lost Pennsylvania and Michigan—which have 20 and 16 electoral votes respectively—and won Wisconsin, which has 10, he would still be one shy of the necessary 270 to win the White House back. Maine’s second district, in that scenario, could put him over the top.

The poll from the Bangor Daily News is Trump’s best one this cycle in the second district, as others have had him either leading by a small amount or virtually tied.