Angus King
MassInc Polling Group for WBUR. 6/13-14. Likely voters. MoE: ±4.4% (no trendlines):
Cynthia Dill (D): 9
Charlie Summers (R): 23
Angus King (I): 50
Other: 1
Undecided: 17
We have our first poll of the Maine Senate race following last week's primaries, and the results are pretty much what you'd expect: Independent former Gov. Angus King crushes the field, and pulls more from the left than the right. That's borne out by the party crosstabs:
Dem GOP Ind
King 60% 31% 57%
Summers 3% 50% 17%
Dill 17% 3% 6%
SoS Charlie Summers' higher take also reflects his slightly higher name recognition, compared to state Sen. Cynthia Dill. But Angus is undoubtedly King, with a 60-21 favorability rating. It's going to be hard for Summers to make the case to national donors that he can actually stop King, especially with Dill performing so poorly. (This sort of reminds me of the Connecticut Senate race in 2006, where Democrat Ned Lamont really needed Republican Alan "Gold" Schlesinger to peel away more votes from Joe Lieberman's right flank; Schlesinger's sub-10 percent finish just wasn't nearly enough.) I guess the good news is, at least the GOP hates Angus King.
One other detail worth mentioning are the presidential toplines. MassInc has Barack Obama up a healthy 14 points over Mitt Romney (he won by 18 in 2008). But the actual numbers—48-34—are a bit low on both sides. Other recent polling has shown the POTUS at 50 or above in Maine. But both the presidential and Senate margins seem to make sense, so I'm not suggesting there's anything off with these.