ME-Gov: Campaign finance reports for 2017 are all in, giving us our first good look at all the candidate's financial strength in this very crowded race. The Bangor Daily News' Michael Shepherd rounds up all the reports, and he helpfully provides an interactive graph that not only tells us how much each contender raised and had in the bank on Dec. 31, but also how much each candidate self-funded. More of this kind of thing, please!
This is a very complicated race, and before we get to the numbers, we have a few things to note. The most important is that the June primaries may be conducted under an instant runoff voting (IRV) system: Voters would be allowed to rank their top choices, and if no candidate takes a majority initially, the last-place candidate gets eliminated and has their votes reassigned to their voters’ next preferences. This process repeats until a candidate obtains a majority of votes. However, we won’t know whether this system will be used in June or if it will just take a plurality of the vote to win the primary until early February.
Why all the confusion? In 2016, Maine voters backed a ballot measure to institute IRV for all state and congressional races. However, the legislature never liked this idea, and they were happy the state Supreme Court issued an advisory opinion last May saying that IRV couldn't be used for general elections for governor or state legislature, though it would have left the primaries (and federal races) alone. The legislature responded by passing a law to effectively repeal IRV for everything. Supporters of IRV are now collecting signatures to get a measure on the June 2018 primary ballot to overturn the legislature's repeal bill, and those signatures are due by early February.
If IRV supporters have enough valid signatures, the legislature's law will be suspended until voters have their say, so the primaries would be done under IRV while voters also decide whether they want to keep that system in a simultaneous referendum. If there aren't enough signatures, it'll just take a plurality to win each party's nomination.
There's one other big thing we need to hit. Several candidates are trying to qualify for taxpayer-funded Clean Election money. These candidates need to collect $5 donations from 3,200 Mainers by early April. But right now, they can raise "seed money" from any U.S. citizen in $100 increments; the most they can raise in seed money is $200,000. Candidates who quality can get up to $1 million for the primary from the program, and up to $2 million if they make it to the general election.
Now to the numbers. We'll start with the Democrats' fundraising, and note any candidate trying to qualify for Clean Elections money:
Former state Sen. James Boyle: $40,000 raised, additional $80,000 self-funded, $58,000 cash-on-hand
Attorney Adam Cote: $527,000 raised, $351,000 cash-on-hand
State Sen. Mark Dion: $14,000 raised, $12,000 cash-on-hand
Former state House Speaker Mark Eves: $160,000 raised, $39,000 cash-on-hand
Former Bangor Mayor Sean Faircloth (Clean Elections): $640 raised (since mid-December), $640 cash-on-hand
Attorney General Janet Mills: $350,000 raised, $231,000 cash-on-hand
Former state Rep. Diane Russell: $50,000 raised, $5,000 cash-on-hand
Lobbyist Betsy Sweet (Clean Elections): $88,000 raised, $77,000 cash-on-hand
Polling has been incredibly limited here. It's likely that Mills, who has been the state's appointed attorney general for years, starts out with the most name-recognition. Maine Democrats may also remember Eves, who was in the news quite a bit in 2015. GOP Gov. Paul LePage, who is thankfully termed-out, had threatened to cut off funding for a charter school if it didn't withdraw its job offer to Eves to serve as its president; legislators discussed impeachment, but it never happened. Cote hasn't been on the ballot since 2008, when he lost a House primary to eventual winner Chellie Pingree 44-28, but he has by far the most money of any of the field.
Of course, money never is the be-all, end-all of American politics, especially in Maine. TV time in the Pine Tree State isn't expensive, so a fairly small war-chest can go a long way. Maine's also a small state, so plenty of voters can become acquainted with their candidates by meeting them in person rather than seeing them on television.
Indeed, political observers remember how in 2010, Waterville Mayor Paul LePage decisively won the GOP primary despite being badly outraised. The Bangor Daily News' Matthew Gagnon writes that LePage had raised just $59,000 by the end of 2009, while businessman Les Otten took in $663,000, and future Rep. Bruce Poliquin raised $443,000. LePage ended up beating Otten 39-17, while Poliquin took sixth place with just 5 percent of the vote.
With that, we'll hit the considerably-smaller GOP field:
State House Minority Leader Ken Fredette: $14,000 raised, $12,000 cash-on-hand
State Senate Majority Leader Garrett Mason (Clean Elections): $32,000 raised, $2,000 cash-on-hand
Former state cabinet official Mary Mayhew: $198,000 raised, $95,000 cash-on-hand
Businessman Shawn Moody: $136,000 raised, additional $150,000 self-funded, $260,000 cash-on-hand
State Senate President Mike Thibodeau: $88,000 raised, $59,000 cash-on-hand
While Fredette, Mayhew, and Moody are all LePage allies, LePage's political network has consolidated behind Moody. By contrast, Thibodeau has come into conflict with LePage, while Mason is closer to the state's Evangelical political network.
There may also be room for another Republican before the March 15 filing deadline. Waterville Mayor Nick Isgro said Tuesday that he's considering, arguing that the field is offering up an "incredibly low-energy campaign." Isgro also pitched himself as someone who could "excite the grass roots." It didn't escape notice that LePage was also the mayor of Waterville when he won his first term in 2010.
We also have a few independents raising money:
Businessman Alan Caron: $30,000 raised, additional $250,000 self-funded, $242,000 cash-on-hand
State Treasurer Terry Hayes (Clean Elections): $34,000 raised, $4,000 cash-on-hand
Independents often do very well in Maine elections. Notably, LePage beat independent Eliot Cutler 38-36 in the 2010 general election, while Democrat Libby Mitchell was a distant third with 19 percent. Cutler did significantly worse in 2014, but he still took 8 percent of the vote. And of course Sen. Angus King, an independent who caucuses with the Democrats, will also be on the ballot this fall.
One big question is which party has the most to lose if Caron and Hayes do well. And Democrats may have reason to fear that Caron could appeal to left-leaning voters. Caron, who founded a nonprofit that works on ways to improve Maine's economy, has called on his campaign site for "two years of no-cost college" and "health care for all," not exactly themes Republicans are running on. Caron also was a Portland Press Herald columnist before he entered the race, and he frequently bashed Trump and congressional Republicans who weren't Maine's GOP Sen. Susan Collins. It's quite possible that Caron will take more votes from Democrats, while voters who like Trump will stick with the GOP.
Hayes was a Democratic state representative, but she had a falling out with the party in 2012 when the caucus picked Eves to serve as speaker instead of her. In 2014, Hayes ran against Democratic state Treasurer Neria Douglass. In Maine, the treasurer is picked by a joint sitting of the legislature; while Democrats maintained a narrow edge in the House, Hayes secured enough support from Republicans and a few Democrats to beat Douglass. Two years later, Hayes was re-elected the same way against ex-Democratic state Rep. Adam Goode.