I’ve run some preliminary analysis of the results from the 2018 gubernatorial election in Maine, and there were a few interesting trends that popped out.  Below I show two graphs.  The first plots the Republican Shawn Moody’s margin (his vote % minus the winner’s, Democrat Janet Mills) against the incumbent governor’s margin from 2014. (The incumbent is Republican Paul LePage, who was not running this year because of term limits).

I scale the plotted points in each town by the number of votes cast, and I plot the results by whether the town is in the first or second congressional districts (CD1 or CD2).  The black line is the 45-degree line, where Moody’s margin would equal LePage’s in 2014.  Most towns lie below the 45-degree line, meaning Moody tended to underperform LePage’s re-election campaign.  Still, in lots of places he did even better than LePage.  The green line fits the points for towns in CD2, and it’s apparent that Moody did better there than in CD1 (the red line).

The second graph plots Moody’s margin against the change in turnout from 2014 to 2018.  Overall, in places where turnout improved, or where it did not decline a lot, Moody did worse.  This is particularly the case in the first congressional district, where his decline in the vote is much steeper in towns with better turnout.

These results and analysis are preliminary.  Interestingly, turnout in most towns declined relative to 2014, though the state-level turnout is pretty flat over 2014.  This despite the fact that turnout nationally jumped significantly(!!!!) over 2014.  Significantly!

Lots more to consider as the data are finalized.