Tom Allen is Done

We have never commented on the U.S. Senate contest happening in Maine this year, in part because it has never really demonstrated a closeness that would merit any close scrutiny. With the release today of a poll showing a 19-point gap separating the popular Republican incumbent and her Democratic challenger, this race is clearly over. Thus, we will make our first, and very likely last post on a contest that started with some potential for an upset, but never really developed into a top-tier battle.

When Congressman Tom Allen (ME-01) announced he was going to give up his safe seat in the House and challenge two-term Senator Susan Collins, a lot of Democrats were giddy that they had garnered a well-known state figure capable of toppling the popular Collins. Indeed, Allen was probably the best Maine Democrat currently in office that stood a chance against the junior senator. Two-term governor John Baldacci was certainly a possibility, but his 38 percent showing in winning re-election in 2006 revealed some considerable vulnerabilities, to be kind. Without question, the strongest possible opponent for Collins was former independent (but left-leaning) Governor Angus King, a figure whose statewide popularity may come close to Collins'. King decided to run, and it is unclear that he was ever seriously recruited by Democrats, who were probably hamstrung by Allen anyway, as he is a sitting Democratic congressman and he wanted to make a go of it.

I know this will sound self-serving, but I never felt for one second that Allen had any chance. You can ask my friend Matt, who is originally from Maine and who shared my sentiments. The problem had less to do with Allen and more to do with Collins herself.

Sure, that Allen represents the small part of southern Maine including Portland made him a sitting duck in the massive Second District (Maine has only two congressional districts) which is where Collins hails from. More importantly, however, Allen was largely helpless in making a dent in Collins' impressive popularity in the state. Simply put, Maine loves its Senate twins: Collins, and the senior Senator Olympia Snowe, who is even more adored. Even though both are Republicans in a mostly-Democratic state, they have been able to thrive through moderate voting records in the Senate and mostly likely personalities.

For the most part, the polling in the race has been ugly from the start. The first two polls, released in October 2007, gave Collins leads of 23 and 17 points, respectively, over an opponent who was well known in half the state, but less so in the other half. Things seemed to pick up a little when Rasmussen began taking the race's temperature. Their first poll in April found Collins ahead 16, then 10 in May, and just 7 points in June.

At that latter point, it appeared that Allen was finally making headway against Collins and was making it into a race. Still, the June poll had a big warning sign: despite being down seven points, Collins boasted a 67 percent approval rating in the state. For Allen to win, he absolutely had cut into Collins' personal popularity. Soon thereafter, Collins' lead continued to balloon up, culminating in the R2K poll released today showing Collins ahead 57-to-38. Interestingly, as the race has progressed, Allen's numbers have slowly ticked down, while Collins' have moved up. Clearly, Allen's positive and negative TV spots were having zero impact; and I have been told that they are pretty ineffective and not terribly good to boot.

Perhaps the race most similar to this one is the 2006 Rhode Island Senate contest between then-incumbent Lincoln Chafee and former U.S. Attorney and state Attorney General Sheldon Whitehouse. Chafee was wildly popular in the state, as the Chaffe name had a long history in Rhode Island politics. Like Collins, his approval ratings were consistently in the 60s. Whitehouse was able to score a 54-46 win for a simple reason: President Bush. While Chafee had easily the most liberal record for a Senate Republican, Bush remained extremely unpopular in the Ocean State, arguably the most liberal state in America. While Chafee had been able to get past his party affiliation in winning easily in 2000 (much like his father, the late Sen. John Chafee, had in winning several times), by 2006, Bush's approval rating in the state was historically low.

Consequently, Whitehouse was able to successfully tie Chafee to Bush -- all the while arguing that it was important for Rhode Island to send a Democratic vote to the Senate to regain a majority for the Blue Team -- and therefore chip away at his approval ratings. By the end of the campaign, Chafee's approval rating was around 60 percent, but it was not enough, and he was beaten.

While Tom Allen and his campaign likely took lessons from Rhode Island 2006, he simply was unable to lower Collins' approval ratings in the same way. Collins' has been at least as popular as Chafee was, if not slightly more so, and perhaps more importantly, Maine is a bit more conservative and independent than Rhode Island. Still, President Obama has polled excellently in Maine, and today's R2K poll shows he will cruise to a likely high-double digit victory in the state. The key problem was that in a year as toxic as 2008 is for Republicans, Allen could not tie Collins to Bush (who is also loathed in Maine this year).

There are various reasons for this, I think. First, I think Collins is just too beloved by the voters in Maine. That one is easy and obvious. Second is that 2008 is dramatically different from 2006 in one key repsect: whereas in 2006, Sheldon Whitehouse and other Democratic Senate challengers could argue that the Senate was so closely divided that one seat could truly make a difference, this year, Democrats now control the Senate, and it is extremely unlikely they can lose control in 2009. It is for this reason that the DSCC and the national party have not campaigned using that urgent theme. Perhaps if the Senate was again at stake this year, Allen could have gained much more traction by convincing Maine voters that their love of Collins should be trumped by a desire to put the Senate back in Democratic hands. We'll never know for sure, but I think given those circumstances, Allen would have had a much better shot to win.

Alas for Tom Allen, the circumstances were not in his favor. Still, I respect him for giving up his post in the House to try for a seat that he had to have known would be very hard to capture.

Hopefully he has a good gig lined up in retirement.