Decline of Maine’s independent voters could have big political implications

By Matthew Gagnon

One of the most well-known political characteristics of Maine is its independence. 

For decades, Maine has had more registered “unenrolled” voters — voters that register to vote, but refuse to sign up for either major party, or even third-party alternatives — than Democrats or Republicans.  

In 2004, the earliest date for which data are available on the secretary of state’s online portal, Maine Democrats represented 31.1 percent of registered voters, while Republicans sat at 28.7 percent. Unenrolled voters — the group we like to call “independent” — eclipsed them both at 38.2 percent, a full 7 percentage points higher than the Democrats.

This arrangement has been the status quo in Maine for a very long time, and gave fuel to two distinct phenomena at the same time: a willingness to support “independent” candidates for political office, and pragmatic, moderate politicians in each of the major parties.

In both cases, candidates were responding to the outsized share of the electorate that unenrolled voters represented. Independent candidates appealed to their rejection of party and sought election as a “third option.” This middle-ground positioning was key to the statewide election of two unenrolled candidates — Jim Longley and Angus King — as governor, and of King’s election to the U.S. Senate in 2012. 

It was also key, though, to many legislative victories in the state House and state Senate over the years. Going back through recent legislative history, there has been at least one and as many as six unenrolled members of the House every year since 1997. On the Senate side, an unenrolled senator was key to the unprecedented power-sharing agreement that was struck after the 2000 elections.

This large and powerful group of voters was also behind the independent streak that was to be found in successful Maine politicians of both parties. Republicans from Margaret Chase Smith, to Bill Cohen, Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins have built their reputations on mavericky anti-partisan dealmaking. On the Democratic side, centrist-oriented pragmatism has been key to the political success of nearly everyone from George Mitchell, to John Baldacci, to Mike Michaud, to Janet Mills and to Jared Golden.

Critics often accuse each of these figures of paying lip service to independence while actually behaving in a partisan way, and I certainly agree with that criticism in some of the cases (particularly Mills). And yet, whatever the reality is, it is undeniable that an appeal to the middle was the essence of their pitch to voters, as they sought to win Maine’s overwhelming independent vote. 

But something has been happening lately that some of us have been noticing for a few years. Maine’s vaunted independence is evaporating — and quickly. 

Last week, the Associate Press ran a story about Maine’s vanishing unenrolled population, noting that it had eroded significantly in the last few years. 

The AP points the finger at the tenure of former Gov. Paul LePage, suggesting that his pugilistic style of politics, coupled with national trends, served to polarize the electorate and pull people into one camp or the other.

This, however, is not really supported by the data. When LePage was sworn into office, Democrats were 32.7 percent of the electorate, Republicans were at 28.2 percent and unenrolled voters were at 35.7 percent. When Mills was sworn in, those margins had barely moved at 33.2 percent, 27.3 percent and 35.4 percent respectively.

The first time we really saw a real change was 2020. This was the first year that one of the two major parties displaced unenrolled voters as the largest voting bloc in the state. Due to the white-hot interest in the presidential election and an unprecedented registration drive by both parties, Democrats gained more than 57,000 voters and Republicans gained more than 36,000 over the prior year, while unenrolled voters fell by 8,675, declining by a shocking 3.5 percent overall in a single year.

This was not an aberration. The trend has continued since then, and today both parties are in their strongest relative position in modern political history. Registered Democrats, once trailing independents by 6.5 percent, now enjoy a 7.4 percent advantage over them. Republicans, too, now have a nominal advantage (about a percentage point) over this group. 

Will the trend continue? Signs certainly seem to be pointing in that direction, which brings up an important set of questions: If it does continue and the days of political independence in Maine are over, what will that mean for elections here? Will politicians any longer chase that middle ground? Is the era of the dealmaking centrist over in Maine?

We’re about to find out.

 Gagnon of Yarmouth is the chief executive officer of the Maine Policy Institute, a free market policy think tank based in Portland. A Hampden native, he previously served as a senior strategist for the Republican Governors Association in Washington, D.C.