Probably not.
Tomorrow Maine holds its nonbinding presidential preference vote, which comes at the end of a week-long series of caucuses held state wide that is the first step in choosing the 24 delegates that will represent Maine at the national convention. Ten of those delegates are chosen statewide, six are allocated (three apiece) to the state’s two congressional districts, and there are three unpledged party delegates and five bonus delegates. But the actual delegates will not be chosen until district meetings and the state convention are held in May.
Although this is a rather small number of delegates, Mitt Romney and Ron Paul are not taking Maine for granted. Mitt flew there tonight and and just concluded his speech at his first event. Paul, meanwhile, has been actively organizing in the state, in the hope that he can secure his first “victory” in tomorrow’s straw poll. Remember, Romney easily “won” Maine in 2008, and Paul finished a distant third. This time, however, there’s more pressure on both of them to do well because of the added media scrutiny following Romney’s disastrous performance in the Colorado and Minnesota caucuses last Tuesday, and Paul’s generally lackluster caucus performances in the race to date.
Neither Gingrich nor Santorum are actively contesting Maine, although it will be interesting to see whether the positive coverage Santorum has received because of Tuesday’s victories will generate some positive feedback in the straw poll.
Although Maine is next door to two states – New Hampshire and Maine – that have strongly supported Romney, its people tend to be a bit more iconoclastic, particularly those in the less populated 2nd congressional district that stretches to the Canadian border. It’s possible that Paul’s libertarian message will strike a chord here among the lakes, pines and moose. Remember, Maine’s Governor Paul LePage is a Republican affiliated with the Tea Party. Although he hasn’t endorsed anyone, his election reflects the strength of the state’s populist conservative movement. Paul is going to try to mobilize those voters. Although news accounts suggest he is well organized in Maine, this is the same refrain I’ve heard in several caucus states, and yet the promise has never been matched by the results. I’m beginning to think the media is simply guessing that he’s well organized, but without any real independent evidence to support the claim. Maybe they think he’s organized because of all the emails and blogs comments his supporters make.
Romney will likely do better in the state’s more southerly 1st congressional district which contains more traditional Republicans. In his speech this evening he stressed a few broad themes designed to appeal to them: attacking Obama and teachers’ unions, promising to expand the Navy (that plays well in Maine) and defending his off-shore accounts against hecklers.
Note that the straw poll is taken among the state’s roughly 4,000 Republican caucus delegates, so winning 50% of the vote means getting about 2,000 votes. Keep this in mind when you see Wolf Blitzer start using the “upset” word tomorrow night. In this vein, a victory here for either Paul or Romney will have more symbolic meaning than substantive value. But at this point, symbolism matters if it helps shape media coverage and changes the narrative in a way the benefits either Paul or Romney. Both CNN and MSNBC are covering this tomorrow as if it does matter. So we will too. I’ll try to be on sometime early in the evening to do a postscript on the straw poll.
I’ve been on something of a prediction roll and, because it’s tradition, I’ll go ahead and call this one for Romney to beat Paul 55%-35%. But frankly, given the small numbers and lack of any polling, that’s little more than a guess and should be treated as such.
In the meantime, I thought it might be interesting to give you a flavor of what life in Maine’s northern woods is really like. Here’s one of Maine’s fabled guides practicing his “moose call”. It’s pretty effective:
Just some real Maine humor there. Seriously, this next clip will give you some insight into the average Maine voter in that neck of the woods:
Those two are Paul voters, for sure.