In the final Republican primary contest of a busy week, Mitt Romney managed to squeak a win in Maine, a state he won in 2008 by a 31 point margin. That margin shrank to 3% yesterday, a paltry 194 votes after 95% of the results have been counted.
Romney’s share of the vote was 52% in 2008, falling to 39% this time around. The reason was a surge for Ron Paul, who took 18% in 2008 and doubled that to 36% in this week’s caucus.
The race has been a little different here: the caucus has been going on all week, with the results coming in yesterday. Ron Paul has been putting in the legwork for a couple of weeks now, making repeated appearances in the state.
Given his poor showing in the primaries in Colorado, Minnesota and Missouri during the week where his rare visits contrasted with the frequency of the winner Santorum’s, Romney took the wise step of putting in a lot of footwork in the Pine Tree State in the last few days. This may have been the critical factor in saving his bacon here.
Ron Paul won a thousand votes more, whilst Romney lost over 600.
Maine is the first contest to have seen an increased turnout: 3% more voters this time than four years ago. This is undoubtedly due to Paul’s vigourous campaigning in the state.
Given that Maine is a state in New England, and therefore far less socially conservative than average, Santorum did well to take 18% of the vote. Gingrich did less well, on a measly 6%.
To show some of this geographically, the map below sets out the results by county in 2008.
As you can see, Romney won in 14 of the 16 counties, with the two counties at the extreme east of the state going to McCain and Paul.
Romney did particularly well in the three most populous counties: Cumberland, York and Penobscot, and the fifth (Androscoggin). The fourth (Kennebec) gave him a still healthy 17% margin.
The map below shows how that has changed. Santorum took Somerset, a county Romney won by 25% (over McCain) four years ago.
Paul increased his county tally from one in 2008 to seven in 2012. This includes Kennebec (home to the state capital, Augusta) and Androscoggin (based around the Lewiston-Auburn mini-conurbation) along with some of the more rugged coastal areas.
Romney’s victory came through keeping the three most populous counties, although only by 4 votes in the eastern Penobscot (around Bangor) and 26 in York county.
His victory basically came from getting out the vote in the most populous county, Cumberland, which is based on the nearest thing to a big city in the state: Portland.
The path forward
We get a couple of weeks off primaries now until Tuesday 28 February, when the big primary elections in Arizona and Michigan take place.
We’ve not had any polls in either state since the Nevada caucus, so it is not clear whether the Santorum resurgence will have an impact: the most recent polls were showing Romney ahead in both, but they were taken in the aftermath of his victory in Florida when it appeared he had things sewn up.
Gingrich was second in both, although only just ahead of Santorum and Paul in Michigan.
Although Romney won Michigan, where his dad was once governor, and lost Arizona to McCain in 2008, it is Michigan where he may struggle more this time, given that he appears to do better in the north-eastern and western states where his wealth is less of a turn-off to Republicans than in the Mid-West and South.
After these, Washington state manages to squeeze in a caucus on Saturday 3 March before Super Tuesday on 6 March.
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