All four of Maine’s electoral votes were won by Massachusetts Sen. John F. Kerry, who had gained a comfortable lead over President George Bush, according to unofficial results tabulated by the Bangor Daily News early Wednesday morning.

With 87 percent of Maine’s 634 precincts reporting, Kerry carried 54 percent of the state with Bush garnering only 44 percent. Independent candidate Ralph Nader picked up 1 percent of the vote with other candidates rounding out the balance.

According to exit polls coordinated by Capitol News Service, Democrats had succeeded in turning out larger numbers of voters than Republicans. Among the 1,808 voters surveyed at 72 polling places across the state, Kerry won 61 percent of voters who were not enrolled in a political party.

Among voters citing domestic issues and health care costs as major concerns, Kerry won 67 percent. Bush attracted 79 percent of those surveyed who said terrorism was their greatest concern. Still, those who cited the war in Iraq as their primary presidential issue gave Kerry 76 percent of their vote.

In Maine, according to the results of Maine Voter Survey 2004, it appeared Kerry had won both of the state’s congressional districts because Democrats had done a better job at getting their voters to the polls and the candidate had clearly identified two areas where the president was most vulnerable: the economy and the war in Iraq.

By the time the presidential campaign had wound down to its final hours, Mainers were intimately familiar with the term “battleground state.” This year Maine joined about a dozen states with electoral votes that could be won by either candidate, according to national pollsters.

The winning candidate requires at least 270 electoral votes to claim victory. The most recent survey from The Washington Post maintained the president and Kerry were each within about 40 votes of reaching the 270-vote goal, reflecting the close margins in Tuesday’s vote.

Maine has voted solidly for the Democratic presidential nominee since 1992. But this year opened a window of opportunity for the state to split its four electoral votes. Maine and Nebraska are the only states that award electoral votes to candidates for carrying individual congressional districts.

In Maine, the statewide winner receives two electoral votes, and the victor in each district collects one electoral vote, enabling a possible 3-1 split.

Mainers have come to associate campaign surrogates as the foot soldiers in this battleground state and recorded telephone solicitations and television ads as the cover fire. Although Kerry has not appeared in Maine since winning the party’s nomination, those speaking on the candidate’s behalf included Kerry’s vice-presidential candidate Sen. John Edwards and his wife, Elizabeth; both made repeat visits to the state. Other notables included actress Sharon Stone; former U.S. Labor Secretary Robert Reich; Andre and Chris Heinz, Kerry’s stepsons; and the candidate’s daughters, Vanessa Kerry and Alice Kerry.

Republicans brought the president to Bangor this fall. Laura Bush has made successive visits to the state, and the couple’s daughters, Jenna and Barbara, also campaigned at colleges and universities in the state. The president’s chief of staff, Andrew Card, has been to Maine at least four times, and Sen. Zell Miller, the Georgia Democrat, was in Maine last week touting Bush. Other high-profile GOP surrogates included former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani and Vice President Dick Cheney.

Amy Fried, associate professor of political science at the University of Maine, said the level of activity by both parties reflected a concern that the state’s 2nd Congressional District remained “in play.” Emphasizing that surrogates can energize local campaign workers and generate local media coverage for candidates who may be campaigning elsewhere in the country, Fried said the president’s visit to Bangor could have packed more clout than all of the surrogates combined.

MaryEllen FitzGerald, of the Maine polling firm Critical Insights, said Mainers are becoming increasingly more savvy about a campaign’s message and its messengers. FitzGerald pointed to last Thursday’s visit by Giuliani and said it was “no coincidence” that a man so closely associated with New York during the attack on the World Trade Center was appearing in the heart of the 2nd district at the same time authorities were analyzing a videotape from Osama bin Laden.