ELECTIONS IN MAINE

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXVII, Issue 23759, 12 September 1940, Page 8

ELECTIONS IN MAINE

The State of Maine always provides early political excitement in the year of a Presidential election. While in all other parts of the United States members of Congress and State governors are chosen in November, at the time of the Presidential poll, in Maine they are elected in September. The party which does best in this New Lngland State quotes the old saying "As Maine goes, so goes the nation devoutly hoping that it will prove true. As the Republicans are leading substantially this year in the five main contests—for one Senator, three members of the House of Representatives and the State Governorship —the party chairman has declared that it portends the return of Mr. Wendell Willkie as President, and a Republican majority in the House of Representatives. He may be right, but comparatively, recent experience shows that predictions cannot safely be made on the strength of what happens in Maine. In 1932 the first indication of the landslide which swept Mr. Hoover out of office came from that State. Two of the three candidates for the House of Representatives elected were Democrats, this being the first breach in Republican supremacy for 18 years. In 1936 the Republicans came back with vigour, winning all three seats in the lower chamber, and retaining the one Senatorship at issue, against a very str °"g challenge. Yet in November Mr. Roosevelt was elected by an overwhelming vote. Consequently the portent from Maine this year can be regarded as evenly divided between the two parties.