Emery and Snowe ahead in NEWS poll

Former Rep. David F. Emery holds a 4.8-percent lead over state Sen. Tom Andrews in the Bangor Daily News-Capitol News Service survey of 1st Congressional District voters.

In Maine’s 2nd Congressional District, Rep. Olympia J. Snowe holds a 44.6-percent lead over state Rep. Pat McGowan.

The survey of 312 1st District and 280 2nd District voters who said they were “very likely” to vote in the Nov. 6 election took place last week. Both surveys are thought to be accurate to within plus or minus four percentage points.

The poll results for the 1st District were: Tom Andrews, 33.3 percent; Dave Emery, 38.1 percent; and unsure, 27.1 percent; 2nd District: Pat McGowan, 21.1 percent; Olympia Snowe, 65.7 percent; unsure, 13.2 percent.

Both 1st District candidates saw cause for optimism in the poll results on their campaign, and both seem to be experiencing difficulty in nailing down their political bases.

“In every major election that I’ve run in, we have been behind in the polls,” said Andrews. “I think that the fact we are in a dead heat now means this will be an exciting race.”

“The results are just about what we have (in our own polls). That’s very good news. I’ll take it,” said Emery. The former four-term congressman said that the large bloc of undecided voters indicated that the race was up for grabs.

Andrews, who won the Democratic primary despite trailing badly in polls taken last spring, predicted that his large number of campaign volunteers would push him past the better-known Emery.

Andrews aides pointed out that the NEWS-CNS poll indicated the continuation of a trend of decreasing leads for Emery. A July poll circulated by the Republican Campaign Committee to lobbying groups in Washington, according to press spokesman Dennis Bailey, indicated that Emery led Andrews by 10 percent.

At a recent press conference, Bailey said, Emery claimed his own polls showed a 7-percent lead.

Emery’s campaign television commercials were running during the week that the NEWS-CNS survey was conducted. Andrews has yet to air any campaign commercials.

A breakdown of the polling data, though, indicates possible trouble for Andrews, and some softness among Republicans for Emery.

Emery was beating Andrews 43.4 percent to 24.5 percent among independent voters, the state’s largest voting bloc. Democrats also seemed to have reservations about Andrews, who was the most liberal of the four Democratic primary candidates last spring.

While two-thirds of Democratic respondents in the gubernatorial race said that they would vote for Rep. Joseph Brennan, only 48.8 percent voiced support for Andrews and 22.3 percent said they would vote for Emery.

Emery also had problems with his own political base, receiving support from only 48 percent of Republicans and losing 24.5 percent of Republicans interviewed to Andrews.

Snowe said that she was “pleased” with the survey results, but cautioned “the only poll that counts comes on Election Day.”

She added, “I plan to continue on my current pace in this campaign, which is to work very hard. There are still two months to go.”

The current poll results put Snowe on a track to equal or exceed her victory over Democratic challenger Ken Hayes in 1988, when she garnered 67 percent of the vote. Snowe has won re-election with as much as 77 percent of the vote in the 2nd District.

McGowan, in a radio interview with CNS, said that he was not discouraged with the survey results “because a poll is just a snapshot of a period of time.”

He said that Snowe’s campaign commercials were airing on television while the NEWS-CNS interviews were being conducted, adding that his do not go on the air until next week.

“What’s going to happen is that people will see my ads and remember that they saw me at the Shop ‘n Save, or at the mill gate. We’ve been working seven days a week since March. I believe that this grass-roots effort will pay off this fall,” McGowan said.

He concluded, “I realize this is an uphill battle, but we’re still 60 days out. I’m not discouraged a bit.”

There wasn’t much good news for McGowan in the poll data. The Democrat trailed Snowe 62.2 percent to 23.5 percent among independents, and by 62.3 percent to 28.3 percent among Democratic voters.