Baldacci leads big in 2 polls Cianchette trailing in Blaine House race

AUGUSTA – Two polls released Tuesday concluded John Baldacci may very well be unstoppable in his bid to become Maine’s next governor.

With less than a week remaining until Election Day, a poll conducted by RKM Research for a media partnership that includes the Bangor Daily News had 46 percent of respondents voting for the retiring Democratic 2nd District congressman from Bangor and 36 percent for Republican Peter Cianchette.

A second poll conducted by Strategic Marketing Services indicated that nearly 44 percent of those surveyed would vote for Baldacci and about 23 percent for Cianchette.

Green Independent Jonathan Carter of Lexington Township came in at 7 percent in the RKM poll and at 4 percent in the SMS poll. Independent state Rep. John Michael of Auburn received less than 1 percent in the RKM poll and 2 percent in the SMS survey.

Eight percent of the respondents in the RKM poll were undecided, compared to 11 percent in the SMS poll.

Baldacci, who received endorsements this week from Maine’s two largest newspapers, the Bangor Daily News and the Maine Sunday Telegram, said Tuesday he felt as though his support was solid throughout the state.

“We’re really pleased with the results,” Baldacci said. “People are excited and they’re enthused. They’ve been talking a lot about our health care plan. The endorsements are gratifying, but we still have to get up in the morning to earn that support and that’s why we’ve been working hard at it. We’re not taking anything for granted.”

The statewide telephone survey of 504 likely Maine voters by RKM Research was conducted Oct. 23-26 for the NEWS, WCSH 6 Portland, WLBZ 2 Bangor, and Maine Public Broadcasting. The poll has a 4.4 percent margin of error. Patrick Murphy, of SMS in Portland, said his random statewide telephone survey had questioned 500 likely voters between Oct. 24 and 27. The Portland Democrat, whose wife is a former Democratic state chairwoman, assigned the poll’s margin of error at 4.4 percent.

Both polls showed Baldacci had experienced a drop in favorability since similar surveys were taken in September, but all of the candidates expected a decline for the perceived front-runner as the number of undecided voters decreased and voter choices became more clearly defined.

Noting the 13-percentage point difference between the two polls in the spread between Cianchette, of South Portland, and Baldacci, Johanna Hill of the Carter campaign said the discrepancy made her question the validity of both surveys.

“Our internal analysis differs significantly from these numbers, so I question the validity of both of them,” she said.

Murphy said he had no reason to doubt his own methodology or that employed by RKM, and that on any given day differences can found in competing samples of public opinion.

“This is not an exact science,” he said. “Does it strike me as odd? Well, in an ideal world all pollsters would come up with the same results at all times. But it just doesn’t work out like that.”

Roy Lenardsen, Cianchette’s campaign manager, said he had no idea where either polling firm got its numbers and that neither bore any resemblance to his understanding of his candidate’s standing.

“We do our own internal tracking and we know right where we are right now,” he said. “And we know that it’s a dead heat and that we’re in this right to the end. We feel very confident.”

Upon hearing the news, Michael said he longed for the days when polling information was more reliable. He derided both organizations as largely “Maine-based polls” that produce the results sought by “those who pay for them.”

“And this SMS outfit is a well-known Democrat liaison,” he said. “So it means nothing. The polls had me at 2 points when I ran for Congress in 1994 and I got 9 points on Election Day. And I’ve been around campaigning with Jonathan Carter and I can tell you right now, his support is a lot higher than 7 percent. It’s bogus. It’s just like Jim Longley said 28 years ago: Polls are just a trick by the professional politicians to get the voters to stay home.”