Poll: Kerry favored by Mainers Telephone survey predicts defeat for ballot initiatives

BANGOR – With just 48 hours before the polls open in Maine, Democrat John Kerry was favored to capture all four of the state’s Electoral College votes in his presidential bid, according to a poll released Sunday.

The SurveyUSA poll conducted for WLBZ 2, WCSH 6 and the Bangor Daily News, also showed Maine’s two ballot initiatives – one to limit property taxes and one to ban bear baiting – headed for defeat.

The automated telephone survey of 1,008 likely voters found Kerry with a 52 percent to 44 percent lead over President Bush statewide. Administered between Oct. 28 and Oct. 30, the poll has a 3.2 percent margin of error.

But because of Maine’s election law, the statewide numbers don’t tell the whole story of who will walk away with Maine’s four Electoral College votes on Tuesday.

Maine, like only one other state, does not award all of its electoral votes to the winner of the statewide popular vote. Two electoral votes are given to the statewide winner, while one vote is given to the winner in each of the state’s two congressional districts.

The SurveyUSA poll found Kerry with similar leads in both congressional districts.

In the southern district, Kerry was favored by 53 percent of likely voters with 44 percent choosing Bush. The difference between the two candidates is technically within the survey’s 4.4 percent margin of error at the district level.

In the northern district, where earlier polls had shown the race much closer than in the south, 52 percent of voters surveyed chose Kerry and 45 percent chose Bush. That margin is also just within the survey’s 4.6 margin of error for the district.

Both campaigns were reluctant to read anything into the late polls, which showed Kerry building on the 6 percentage point lead he had 10 days ago.

Just as Maine’s statewide polling numbers don’t tell the entire story, neither do national polls, many of which show Bush with a slight lead over Kerry in the nationwide popular vote.

Vice President Al Gore famously won the popular vote in 2000, but lost to Bush in the Electoral College. States, based on population, cast a certain number of votes for president in the Electoral College system. For example, while Maine has four votes, California has 55. To win the presidency, a candidate needs 270 Electoral College votes.

In the final days of the race, the campaigns pay far more attention to polls in the handful of states still considered competitive including Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin and Florida. Polls in those states vary and most show the race too close to call.

Maine, specifically its northern congressional district, is also considered close, and the campaigns have sent high-level surrogates to the Bangor and Lewiston areas in the campaign’s waning hours in hopes of solidifying support.

Democratic vice presidential nominee John Edwards was in Bangor Saturday, and today U.S. Sen. Ted Kennedy and U.S. Rep. Richard Gephardt will be in Portland and Bangor, respectively.

For the GOP, New York Gov. George Pataki stumped for Bush in Auburn Sunday.

The Sunday poll also showed that half of those likely to vote for Kerry said they were actually casting a vote against Bush. That’s not unusual during a re-election effort, said Jim Melcher, a political scientist at the University of Maine at Farmington, particularly that of a president who elicits strong feelings from both his supporters and opponents.

Aside from the presidential race, the SurveyUSA poll found growing opposition to a proposed 1 percent property tax cap. Sixty percent of likely voters said they would oppose ballot Question 1, the so-called Palesky initiative, with 37 percent in favor.

Question 2, an effort to ban certain forms of bear hunting, was closer, but also appeared headed for defeat with 54 percent opposed and 44 percent in favor, according to the poll.