The Democrats’ prospects of regaining the governorship of Maine in next week’s elections received a boost on Wednesday when an independent candidate told his supporters that they were free to vote for another candidate if they did not think he could win.
Eliot Cutler told a press conference that while he was not abandoning his campaign altogether, he recognised that some of his supporters felt “a gripping fear” that voting for him could result in a victory for their least favoured major-party candidate.
Governor Paul LePage, the Republican incumbent, currently leads congressman Mike Michaud, the Democrat, by less than a percentage point, according to a RealClearPolitics polling average. Many Michaud supporters had urged Cutler to step aside to help unseat LePage.
Cutler said on Wednesday at his campaign’s Portland headquarters: “Anyone that has supported me but who now worries that I cannot win, and is thereby compelled by their fears or by their consciences to vote instead for Mr LePage or Mr Michaud, should do so.”
His remarks were widely expected to assist Michaud. Supporters of Cutler favour the Democratic congressman over LePage by 55% to 35%, a survey by Public Policy Polling found last week. It said that 73% of Cutler supporters had a negative view of Maine’s first-term governor, and estimated that Michaud would lead 49-44 in a head-to-head race.
A group of former Cutler supporters who defected to Michaud promptly convened at an oceanfront hall by the Committee to Rebuild Maine’s Middle Class, a Democratic public affairs committee, to explain why others should do the same to prevent LePage’s re-election.
“Eliot has a lot of good ideas,” said Bobby Monks, a real estate developer, former campaign finance chairman for Cutler, and bundler for President Barack Obama. “However, all of us believe that Mike Michaud has strong progressive values.”
“I think the right thing now is to unite behind Mike Michaud,” said Jim Shaffer, a retired media executive and registered Republican. “We can ill-afford four more years of Paul LePage and his administration, which has been characterised by lost opportunity.”
Shaffer was one of several former Cutler supporters who said the independent candidate and lawyer should have withdrawn from the campaign. Asked why he thought Cutler had not done so, Shaffer told the Guardian: “Ego … he should have got out and endorsed Michaud.” Shaffer warned Democrats that “a significant number of Cutler voters will now vote LePage”.
Cutler ran for governor in 2010 and finished less than two percentage points behind LePage, beating the Democratic candidate, state senator Libby Mitchell, into third place. However, he has failed to replicate that success this year and currently polls about 25 points behind the nominees for the major parties.
Having been elected at the 2010 midterms, which were marked by a wave of support for Republicans and anti-government Tea Party conservatives, LePage has struggled to gain widespread popularity in a state that Obama carried over Mitt Romney by more than 15 percentage points in the 2012 presidential election.
Republicans had been attempting to push centrist Michaud supporters to the independent. A campaign advertisement attacking Michaud that was released on Tuesday by the Republican Governors Association did not mention LePage, the party’s nominee, and instead stressed that Cutler had been endorsed by Angus King, the state’s independent US senator.
Public Policy Polling said last week: “The biggest factor in this race remaining so close is that Cutler, consistently in a distant third place, is continuing to siphon off enough of the anti-LePage vote to keep the contest in toss-up range.”
King, who votes with Democrats in the Senate, said in a statement later on Wednesday that he was switching his endorsement from Cutler to Michaud following the independent candidate’s remarks.
Describing Cutler as “a fine man”, King said that he, too, was a realist and “it is clear that the voters of Maine are not prepared to elect Eliot in 2014.”
“The good news is that we still have a chance to elect a governor who will represent the majority of Maine people: my friend and colleague, Mike Michaud,” said King.
