The Pittsburgh Press (September 9, 1946)
Background of news –
By how much Maine goes?
By Bertram Benedict
Maine today holds its general election of 1946, electing, among others, a governor, a U.S. senator and three representatives in Congress.
Maine’s voting in September instead of November is a survival of the days when states held elections, even for president, at different times. In 1792, Congress provided that the states might vote for president any time within the 34 days preceding the first Wednesday in December of the election year.
Not until 1845 did Congress enact the law now in effect: that all states vote for president on the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November.
Congress made no similar requirements about elections for Congress, and Maine never has replaced its original constitution of 1819, which fixed September for elections.
When the states voted for president on different days prior to 1848, the first states to vote usually indicated what the national result would be.
For instance, in 1840, when William Henry Harrison ran for the Whigs against Martin Van Buren for the Democrats, the first two states to vote were Ohio and Pennsylvania. They gave Harrison 51 electoral votes, and only 148 were needed to elect. In fact, Harrison was elected before one-fourth of the states had voted.
Consistently Republican
Maine consistently votes Republican in its September election. So did the nation in the November elections from 1860 to 1880; hence the adage gained currency: “As Maine Goes, So Goes the Nation.”
It was remarkable that the adage should have remained current after 1880, because in 1884 and again in 1892, Maine had voted Republican while the nation as a whole was to vote Democratic.
Furthermore, when Wilson was re-elected in 1916, Maine voted for Hughes. Hoover carried only six states in 1932; one of them was Maine.
In 1936, Democratic National Chairman James A. Farley was able to wisecrack: “As Maine goes, so goes Vermont.”
And in 1940, Maine voted for Willkie, who received only 82 of the 531 electoral votes; in 1944 for Dewey, who got 99.
Size of majority a factor
Although Maine by itself is thus no good as a political barometer, the size of the Republican majority in Maine in September may give a fairly accurate forecast of how the nation will vote two months later.
In 1928, the Republican senatorial candidate in Maine got 70 percent of the vote; the presidential election was a Republican landslide. In 1936, a Democratic landslide year, the GOP senatorial candidate had barely scraped through in Maine with 51 percent of the vote. In 1940, he had 59 percent of the vote. Roosevelt again won the presidency easily. There were no senatorial contests in Maine in 1932 or 1944.
As for midterm election years, in 1930, the Maine GOP senatorial candidate had 61 percent of the vote; the national House of Representatives was to be almost evenly divided. In 1934, he barely got 50 percent; the House was to be overwhelmingly Democratic. In 1938, no senator was elected from Maine.