Casino defeat predicted Poll: Opposition climbs; supporters play defense

Support for a proposed Indian casino continues to fall, according to a new poll, and pro-casino forces find themselves on the defensive in the campaign’s final days.

“Our only hope is that people … vote their hopes instead of their fears,” said pro-casino spokeswoman Erin Lehane, dejected upon learning of the latest survey results, which found opposition to the casino among likely voters reaching its highest point ever at 59 percent.

“But polls are polls, and anything can happen,” she added.

The Survey USA poll, released to the Bangor Daily News on Friday, found that only 38 percent of likely voters supported Question 3 – down from 41 percent the week before. Three percent were undecided.

“We can feel it,” Casinos No! spokesman Dennis Bailey said of the momentum he believes his anti-casino group has gained in the past week. “I think we’ve gotten them off message and forced them to focus on the real issues of the bill.”

But Bailey stressed that his confidence was guarded with just days to go before Nov. 4, when voters decide whether to allow the Penobscot Nation and Passamaquoddy Tribe to open a $650 million casino, the planned destination for which is the southern Maine town of Sanford.

The campaign has been the costliest in the state’s history, with both sides combining to spend nearly $10 million – $2 million more than even the state’s most expensive U.S. Senate race.

The most recent poll, conducted for WLBZ 2 in Bangor and WCSH 6 in Portland, surveyed 868 likely voters between Oct. 28 and Oct. 30. It has a 3.4 percent margin of error.

Among the 513 voters in that group who considered themselves certain to go to the polls, the numbers looked even worse for casino advocates with 66 percent opposed and 33 percent in favor.

Those numbers are a far cry from early polls, which showed comfortable levels of support for the casino.

The turnaround in recent weeks, experts say, is in part a function of casino opponents effectively tapping into voters’ reservations about how the massive resort could change the state.

“They’ve spurred a lot of anxiety,” said Jim Melcher, a political science professor at the University of Maine at Farmington. “There’s a certain anxiety about change in Maine.”

Bailey’s group has also been successful, Melcher said, in putting the pro-casino political action committee, Think About It, on the defensive in the past week by flooding the airwaves with disturbing images of children at slot machines at a “kiddy casino.”

Instead of talking about the 10,000 jobs and $100 million in annual revenue the casino is expected to bring to the state, Think About It has had to spend time countering the last-minute ads, which contend that children would be allowed to gamble.

Casino supporters say the provision in the statute only allows children to play “bazaar games” similar to those found at country fairs.

But while the Indian casino finds itself in a tough spot, a plan to allow slot machines at the state’s two harness racing tracks has appeared more likely to win voters’ favor.

In fact, Question 2 has faced little organized opposition thus far – save for a low budget anti-slot campaign funded by Michael Heath’s Christian Action League. As a result, the racetrack plan has found itself comfortably lost in the furor over Question 3, Melcher said.

In fact, it was not until Thursday that former Gov. Angus King, a chief spokesman for Casinos No!, spoke out against the project, according to published reports.

Bailey clarified Friday that King’s recent statements were not on behalf of Casinos No!, which is only allowed to campaign against the Indian casino.

The late opposition rankled supporters of Question 2, including David Nealley, the chief spokesman for the developer of the Bangor Raceway plan which he said would support 2,000 jobs.

“Governor King is standing between the people and their next paycheck,” said Nealley, admittedly concerned about Question 2’s fate considering the decline of support for Question 3.

“It’s too close for comfort,” Nealley said of his group’s latest poll, which showed support at about 52 percent, down from 63 percent a month ago.