President Barack Obama leads his GOP challenger W. Mitt Romney by three points in Maine???s 2nd Congressional District, according to poll released Nov. 2, 50 percent to 47 percent.
In 2008, Obama won Maine-2 with 55 percent of the vote.
In the poll group, 90 percent identified themselves as white, 49 percent as Protestant, and 30 percent as Catholic. The poll group breaks down by party as 38 percent Democrat, 31 percent Republican and 31 percent Independent, and by gender, 53 percent female. The poll was conducted by Winter Springs, Fla.-based Gravis Marketing.
If the single electoral vote from Maine-2 would split off from Vacationland???s four votes, it would break a possible 269 to 269 tie between Obama and the former Massachusetts governor. Maine awards two electoral votes to the statewide winner and each congressional district winner gets the one vote assigned to it. The procedure began in 2003, but since then no Maine district has split.
Romney has a slight lead among early voters. Forty-eight percent said they voted for Romney, 46 percent for the president, 8 percent would not say.
The poll found Obama leading Romney among Independents in the district by 11 points, 54 percent to 43 percent.
Asked about the president???s job performance, the results were much tighter with 48 percent telling the pollster they approved of Obama???s job performance, 47 percent said they disapproved.
Thirty-nine percent of the respondents said they thought the country was going in the right direction, compared to 49 percent, who said the country is going in the wrong direction.
Maine-1 includes Portland, the state's capital Augusta and the lower half of the seacoast, and is a safe district for the president. Maine-2 is everywhere else in the state and more blue-collar and socially conservative. The district's largest cites are Bangor and Waterville.
