Op-ed by Cygnal Senior Partner and Pollster Chris Lane
“Paul LePage is a political unicorn.”
That was my message in late September to Brent Littlefield, former Maine governor Paul LePage’s senior political advisor and general consultant on the race. I didn’t mean LePage was a lock. I meant he was impervious to the environment. No matter how we rebuilt the electorate in our models, he landed in the same spot.
Last Tuesday proved the point. Democrats flipped dozens of House seats and took back the Senate. In Maine’s 2nd Congressional District, LePage went the other way, beating Democrat Matt Dunlap by roughly 5,400 votes. He’s the only Republican to take a Democratic House seat that wasn’t redrawn.
Trump carried this district by nearly 10 points in 2024, but our first poll in August had the generic ballot at just R+1 and the president 20 points underwater. Democrats were more fired up. Nationally, Cygnal’s National Voter Trends poll had Democrats up seven on the generic ballot. Yet LePage led narrowly.
By September, LePage sat at 48%, so we stress-tested that number three ways. First, we weighted the electorate to Trump +10, a replay of 2024 turnout and the friendliest universe a Republican could ask for. LePage: 48%. Then we cut it to Trump +5, closer to the harsh environment we knew we were in. LePage: 48%. Finally, we weighted the district dead even, worse than anything we expected. LePage: still 48%.
Three electorates, one number.
That almost never happens. Candidates ride the tide or get crushed by it. The anger at Trump moved around and underneath LePage, but he didn’t budge.
Nobody in the 2nd District had to guess who Paul LePage was. They had watched him for 16 years and elected him governor twice. No attack ad was going to change their minds, and that mattered in a state where the Senate race alone drew more than a quarter-billion dollars in ads.
That left LePage two groups to win. The first was ticket-splitters. Senator Susan Collins (R-ME) carried the district comfortably, so we targeted Collins voters who weren’t with LePage yet. They skewed older, female, and moderate, and most weren’t registered Republicans. Nearly 40% already backed a generic Republican for Congress, so the party label wasn’t the problem. Temperament and the Trump connection were. What moved them was concrete: the rural hospital debt LePage paid off as governor and the gas taxes he cut, as pump prices climbed. After hearing his record next to Dunlap’s, 46% of those voters came over to LePage.
Dunlap, meanwhile, was a blank slate. In August, nearly half the district had no opinion of him or had never heard of him. His vote to tax seniors’ Social Security benefits made 55% of voters less likely to support him, and it hit squarely with the Collins voters LePage needed. When Dunlap started introducing himself in September, Littlefield and Team LePage got there first and made the contrast stick. By October, Dunlap’s image had gone from +11 to -3.
Persuasion was necessary, but it wouldn’t be enough. The second group was gettable Republicans: voters who would back LePage if they showed up, and who stayed home across the country this year. Turning out a base that doesn’t want to be motivated almost never works, and even less in an environment like this one. Republicans everywhere tried and failed. LePage’s team found these voters and dragged them out.
Polling can tell a campaign where the voters are. It can’t win them. Littlefield and Team LePage did that work: they raised the money to carry the message, put it in front of the right voters, and did it before Dunlap could answer. LePage did the hardest part himself, campaigning straight into a national headwind.
Dunlap led into Wednesday morning, then small towns up north and down east came in and put LePage ahead for good.
The lesson for a party that just lost the House and Senate: there is no cookie-cutter formula, especially in a wave. Campaigns have to play the hand they’re dealt. In the 2nd District, the choice was never turnout or persuasion. LePage needed both.
His hand was unusual, and the campaign played it masterfully.
Voters’ opinions of him were baked in, so attacks bounced off, and the campaign didn’t need to waste resources playing defense. That freed Team LePage to go on offense: an ad in French for Franco-American voters, a targeted case to Collins voters, and a turnout push for gettable Republicans.
Republicans who want to compete in 2028 will need more candidates who hold at 48% no matter which way the wind blows. Unicorns aren’t supposed to exist. Paul LePage was one anyway. Brent Littlefield and Team LePage made sure 2nd District voters knew it, and every Republican running in a tough seat should study how they did it.
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Read the Op-ed on the Daily Wire here.