How Gay Marriage Lost In Maine
Mainers, and national observers, have woken up this morning asking how the Yes on 1 coalition won this fight. Through most of the lead up to this vote, observers (including myself) felt that it would be extremely close, potentially to a recount, and that the No on 1 folks had the early advantage.
True, most of us were careful to couch our predictions with additional analysis that left the door open for a Yes on 1 victory, but I don’t think anyone really saw a more than 30,000 vote victory for the proponents of the veto. And make no mistake – this was a decisive, and unquestionable win for the Yes on 1 campaign. It wasn’t really very close.
Why do I say this? Take a gander at the county by county map:
The only counties that went for the No on 1 campaign were Hancock, Knox, Cumberland and York. In Hancock, No won by only a margin of 53%-47%, Knox and York were both basically 51%-49% and Cumberland represented the only decisive victory for the campaign at 60%-40%.
So how did it happen?
The short answer, is that No on 1 dramatically underperformed in urban areas, and got slaughtered in the rural parts of the state.
Consider this: Of the ten largest cities in Maine (Portland, Lewiston, Bangor, South Portland, Auburn, Biddeford, Brunswick, Sanford, Scarborough and Augusts), five of them (Lewiston, Auburn, Biddeford, Sanford and Augusta) voted yes. Let me repeat that – five of the ten largest cities in Maine voted for the veto. Even more interesting, take Lewiston-Auburn a step further: They went (combined) 62%-38% for Barack Obama over John McCain in 2008, and 43-32-25 for John Baldacci over Chandler Woodcock and Barbara Merrill in 2006 – yet they voted heavily for a culturally conservative ballot initiative. Welcome to Maine.
Check out our chart on the results from the thirty largest cities:
Note: The population numbers are based on 2006 census estimates, and not every single precinct has yet reported, so these are not the final numbers, but they do show about 95% of them, and can clearly demonstrate the trend.
While No on 1 performed very well in Portland, even in the cities where no did in fact win, the margins were not nearly as high as was needed. Consider that Bangor and Scarborough only saw “no” victories of about 9% overall. That same level of separation was also present in Westbrook, Waterville, Gorham, York, Kennebunk, Wells and Topsham.
In other words, in those more urban/suburban areas where No on 1 really badly needed large margins of victory, they were only able to pull in minor spreads.
This is important, because we all knew that the more remote, rural areas of Maine were going to come in heavily against gay marriage, so these large population centers needed to deliver in a big way to offset that.
Aroostook County, for example weighed in heavily for Yes on 1, contributing a net of 12,000 votes and beating No on 1 by a whopping 73%-27% margin. Franklin County, Oxford County and Somerset County all weighed in decisively for Yes on 1 as well.
But even more damaging were Kennebec County (delivering a net of 7,000 votes for Yes) and Penobscot County (11,000), both of which hold a strong number of votes and represent a mix of urban, suburban, and rural voters.
This was the real battlefield where No on 1 lost. These voters – and their cousins in other counties – are not “back country hicks” – even though some areas of those counties are remote. I myself am from Penobscot country (Hampden, specifically – which incidentally went for Yes 53%-47% for those of you keeping score), and a great deal of these people represent the typical “suburban swing voter”. In other words, many of them work white collar jobs, live in mostly nice neighborhoods within striking distance of a city, and are pliable for whichever side makes the better case. We are not talking about culturally conservative “Deliverance” type areas here – this is the home of Maine’s soccer moms.
The failure of No on 1 to make any inroads in these types of voters is what ultimately doomed them. The people who live in townships and in the shadows of mountains may have been decidedly against gay marriage, but they don’t represent anywhere near enough votes to offset what happened in Portland and other No on 1 cities. This fight was lost among the middle class voters of “middle Maine”, and it was lost badly.
The question going forward for gay rights advocates has to be, “now what?” This fight wasn’t just lost, it was lost handily, and there is no way I see this question coming up again and seeing a different result. Will we now see a push for a Civil Union bill as some form of compromise? Will we see activists pushing the courts to pull a Massachusetts? We shall see – but one thing is clear: for all of its reputation as a “liberal stronghold”, Maine remains more culturally conservative than not.
Popularity: 31% [?]
Let me encourage you to also take a look at the results for the 2005 Question 1 referendum, which was to overturn the part of the non-discrimination law regarding sexual orientation. I’ve just started to crunch some numbers on this, but here are a few.
In 2005, Lewiston went for No on 1 by 53.5%. In 2009, it was 60-40 Yes on 1. Another way to see the very real change there is that Lewiston’s No vote results in 2005 were 1.5 percentage points less than the state No vote, while in 2009 Lewiston’s No vote was 7 percentage points less than the state’s overall No vote.
The winning margins for No on 1 in Portland and Bangor were about 4 points less in 2009 as compared to 2005.
This combination of reduced margins in some places and even flipping of the results is important in assessing what happened.
Professor Fried, nice to see you stop by. Hope things are well for you.
Excellent tidbit. I was planning on diving a little further into the numbers as well, so that’s a good thing to keep in mind.
“It lost handily?” Hardly: it was lost by all of 3,000 votes. That’s roughly equivalent to the number of people who will migrate to Maine from gay-friendly Massachusetts in the next year, and less than the number of Mainers who will migrate from rural parts of the state to urban York or Cumberland counties.
Also, take a look at the suburb where No On One had its second-best showing, percentage-wise: Orono. Sure, it’s a university town, but that fact demonstrates how much of a demographic disadvantage the Yes On One campaign will face next year and every year thereafter. As conservative old voters die off and rural voters move to the cities for better economic opportunities, gay marriage will become increasingly accepted.
It’s only a matter of time. If the No on One campaign can learn from its mistakes this time around and focus grassroots network-building on a few key second-tier cities, like Sanford, Augusta, and L/A, then the campaign can win the extra 4000 votes it needs to win it all.
Dude, what are you on? It lost by more than 30,000 votes… not 3,000.
Orono and Old Town aren’t suburbs for you to point to if you want to get a good sense of where the indies are… you saying it is a university town and brushing that aside is telling – given the fact that basically all of the other suburbs in Penobscot County went for Yes. In other words, the area is aligned one way, while the people in Orono/Old Town are aligned differently, due in large part to transplanted young, mostly liberal-leaning college students.
Your analysis leaves a lot to be desired, my friend.
My family and I are going to be moving to the NorthEast in about a year or so. Maine was #1 on our list…until last night.
This lifelong straight married family guy won’t have anything to do with a state that is so stupid as to REPEAL civil rights.
Maine can go to hell as far as I’m concerned. All the nasty talk about inbred backwoods neanderthals is apparently true.
Count this as one productive taxpaying family that will never spend a single dime in Maine. You should all be ashamed of yourselves.
Let me just support Matt in this. “C. Neal”, FYI, the vote totals, state-wide, were as follows:
Yes – 299,483 (53%)
No – 267,574 (47%)
600 of 608 precincts reporting – 99 percent
That’s a difference, as Matt said, of OVER 30,000…not 3,000.
Your arithmetic is as bad as your political analysis
Joe,
it saddens me that one issue could keep you from Maine. there is obviously a very strong group of people who fought long and hard for this. if you are so quick to declare every person in maine a redneck then we , quite frankly, don’t want you. you go spend your money in some other state, we really don’t need it… in case you haven’t noticed we aren’t a materialistic state… what we need are more people who are willing to move here to fight for issues like this, not jump ship, or expect to move to an already perfect state. sorry we didn’t do all the work for you. incase you haven’t noticed, it may have gotten repealed, but we were taking leaps & bounds beyond other new england states. you’d probably be better off in mass anyhow… asshole.
It’s sad that such a beautiful state should harbor so much bigotry against hard-working families. The Mormons have won this round by whispering fear into Mainers’ ears, but they will pay for their hatred and bigotry in the afterlife.
Dear Joe:
I’m surprised and saddened that you now consider Maine to be full of inbred neanderthals. Considering that I, and the rest of my family, voted No on 1, along with many other people. You’re going to let one vote keep you from a great place to live? You don’t deserve Maine.
Please , tell me how you you can consider me a bigot when as a free person in a Democratic nation, I cast my ballot expressing my own personal belief. I am so sick of being called a hater because I have conservitive views and cherish traditional marriage.I have that right ,as do we all. I do not now nor have I ever discriminated against others. I believe people should live and love as they wish. HOW CAN YOU DESCRIBE YOURSELVES AS OPEN-MINDED FREE THINKING PEOPLE, WHEN YOU CHASTISE THOSE WHO DISAGREE WITH YOU ? Who is being intolerant here? Talk about bigots…..Look in the mirror.
[...] How Gay Marriage Lost In Maine | Pine Tree Politics Quote: [...]
We lost this fight the moment that we proceeded on the premise that our civil rights are subject to confirmation or elimination by our fellow citizens. Our civil rights are not “granted” by the constitution or by our fellow citizens – we are born with them and may not be deprived of them by anyone (or any government). This issue needs to be resolved, once and for all, in the federal court system, as all other major civil rights disputes have in the history of this country. If we had waited for slavery or segregation to be resolved by the electorate, we might still be living with those repugnant practices. I don’t feel the need to ask politely, beg, or try to persuade my fellow citizens to recognize my rights – I demand that they do so, and I will defend my rights by whatever means I deem necessary and prudent.
Joe,
Let me invite you to move to Vermont, where my family and I live.
Maine has always been the strangest of the New England states. It’s so odd in so many ways that I have occasionally to stop myself thinking that the whole state is actually a creation of Stephen King.
We can’t provide you with the Atlantic Ocean in Vermont, but we can offer you the most mellow, tolerant, accepting and progressive state in New England and the United States.
I wish you and your family all the best in settling in a congenial and happy place.
I’m native, and while agreeing with my fellow Mainers who aren’t heartbroken that Joe has abandoned his plans to move to the state, I’d also like to point out that not everyone who voted Yes is a backwoods neanderthal. Some people have arguments against gay marriage that don’t boil down to “my priest told me to” or “the Bible says so.” It’s easy for advocates of gay marriage to dismiss all opposition as “fear” or “hate” or “ignorance” (or being “inbred,” apparently), but the negative consequence of this dismissal *for those advocates* is that they don’t engage in any detailed discussion of their position–to what is clearly (if last night’s vote is any indication) to their detriment. Those who have more substantive and subtler concerns about the specific legal consequences of gay marriage, who would appreciate some details, are apparently not satisfied by a commercial that believes showing a loving family exhausts the argument.
This seems to be the very interesting and important lesson of Mr. Gagnon’s post — the opposition simply *can’t* be dismissed as ignorant rednecks. I hope this leads to more detailed and thoughtful explication by gay-marriage advocates of their position (say, what legal boundaries they would support to prevent further expansions of “marriage” if they are successful, and how they would argue against others’ appeals to equality) and a more charitable realization that persuasion is harder, but more rewarding and likely effective, than demonization.
[...] the initiative failed was that a majority of Maine’s citizens just didn’t approve. It’s that simple: This was the real battlefield where No on 1 lost. These voters – and their cousins in other [...]
We as a country did not allow, say, Alabama to vote on Whites Only policy in 1968 – we said ‘this is against the constitutional principles of protection’. Same thing in Maine – why are voters even being asked if they want to institutionalize prejudice against other citizens? Should we allow Alabama today to vote on interracial marriage bans?
What surprised me most about the vote was York County, at being so close to 50-50. Clearly there would be no way of winning state-wide unless York, along with Cumberland, would contribute a large excess of no-votes. Except for Biddeford, the big towns (Kennebunk, Kittery, Saco, Wells, York) all went for “no”, but the small towns together with Biddeford drowned this out.
Are there any data breaking down the vote demographically, in particular by age?
I’m so angry I could spit. I’m a gay man and I’m sick of being subhuman. I cried myself to sleep last night when I heard the news. Think of all the gay people you are hurting. My heart breaks when I think of the people who will kill themselves over this. I wanted to die when I was young and tried killing myself because I was told that I was wrong and that I would burn in hell. You Mainers who voted for this have NO idea what you have done. My entire life is about love. Jesus loved EVERYONE!!!! No one should have more rights than the next person. Can someone out there explain to me how people can have so much hate in their hearts? Please. I need answers!
[...] same sex marriage bill in Maine. I have collected an assortment of my favorite reactions. First up, Matthew Gagnon on the cold reality of the situation: Even more damaging were Kennebec County (delivering a net of [...]
This is how I explained it to my gay brethren over at soulforce.org:
I grew up in Maine, went to college in Maine, and left Maine after I graduated. I continue to have a love-hate relationship with the place, with an annual pilgrimage enough to remind me what I love about the place and why I left.
At the end of the day, the heavy lifting of one county — Cumberland Co., home to Portland, Maine’s largest city — wasn’t sufficient to offset the other 15 counties in the rest of the state. While a few southern, coastal counties teetered back and forth over the 50-50 line, the rest came down decidedly in the Yes column.
To me, this is largely a class issue. Southern coastal areas are more cosmopolitan. They are wealthier, better educated, and host most of Maine’s huge tourism business. In short, they know gay people. The inland areas (where I’m from) are isolated geographically and culturally. They are poorer and more blue collar. Think depressed mill towns. If you grow up gay there, you make it through high school in one piece and you leave. In short, they really don’t know gay people.
The good news is that this is also a generational battle, and the wind is at our backs. Check out this soothing balm of a post* at Daily Kos, written by their resident Mainer. It made me feel a helluva lot better today
* http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/11/4/800205/-Cheers-and-Jeers:-Wednesday
[...] crunching the poll numbers, Matthew Gagnon thinks he has an idea: soccer moms. No on 1 dramatically underperformed in urban areas, and got slaughtered in the rural [...]
My question for saucy – what are the “more substantive and subtler concerns about the specific legal consequences of gay marriage”? I understand that those who support gay marriage support giving homosexuals the same legal rights as heteros. What are the “legal consequences” that the Yes on One are concerned about?
[...] suburban swing voters—Maine soccer moms—cost us marriage equality in Maine? Political blogger Matthew Gagnon (who leans right, but not too far) thinks so, and his argument makes some [...]
I agree with JohnJay60: why are we allowing citizens to vote on issues of minority rights? Courts and the legislature should protect and guarantee minority rights. Interracial marriage was not protected through ballot initiatives. There are plenty of people who still would withhold approval of such marriages. I just ask heterosexual married people, how would you feel if your relationship and your family were put up for a vote and you found out that many of your neighbors voted against you? Watch this moving clip from Ireland and put yourselves in our shoes: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ULdaSrYGLQ
Joe’s words were a bit strong but I understand how he feels. I’m a gay man living in Maryland and have vacationed many times in Maine. I love it there and often thought that I would someday move there, perhaps after retirement. I’m not so sure now. The vote on Tuesday has left a very bitter taste in my mouth and I feel that Maine may not be the welcoming place that I always considered it to be.
Vermont is looking more and more like the place that would be best for me (Norrie, thank you for the invitation). I still love Maine but the bloom is off that rose. I hope Mainers will reverse this decision in the near future.
[...] Matthew Gagnon at Pine Tree Politics has an interesting analysis of the vote. He finds that the No on 1 vote did not capitalize on the “Maine middle” — those suburban areas in Southern Maine that could have swung the vote the opposite direction. His argument is that the suburban and urban areas needed to come in more strongly in opposition to Question 1 than the rural areas where support was very strong. [...]
I’m curious how the Maine vote turns out demographicly.
Here in Cali, the LA Times did an in depth piece on the vote on Prop 8.
Here, the vote was closer, only 1.8% more voted for it. The age bracket that primarily voted against it was 70 and over.
[...] How Gay Marriage Lost In Maine | Pine Tree Politics "Mainers, and national observers, have woken up this morning asking how the Yes on 1 coalition won this fight. Through most of the lead up to this vote, observers (including myself) felt that it would be extremely close, potentially to a recount, and that the No on 1 folks had the early advantage. [...]
Two things:
1) Mr. Gagnon, do you think this cultural conservatism extends to abortion?
2) I’m from an apparently backwards mill town and fed the hell up with hearing Massholes and Old Port-types writing nasty things about me and my family. There is nothing tolerant about you at all.
I’d also like to know why so many readers move here and try to change Maine into what they left.
Matt,
Thanks for the stats! I was looking for them everywhere so I hope yours are good because it leads me to the following observations and my answer to the question, “Why No lost…Firstly, I would like to say that I am very proud of the Maine legislators who were so forward thinking as to change the marriage law in the first place, which led us all into this odyssey. No” lost simply because of voter complacency. Oh, not all voters, just the large majority of them in Maine, who, yes, happen to be liberals. When a small number of people who all share the same politics, religion, orthodoxy, or fear can be organized as were the people in the “yes” camp. When these people who are easily gathered make up their mind to VOTE, they do just that. They VOTE, and they do it in extremely high numbers. (i.e,, Nearly every single one of them will go to the ballot box to vote their way) This makes them very effective especially, they even know this, when at the same time the larger number of registered and equally empowered group of people who are not organized, are not scared, are not threatened, and are just plain old busy doing other things so they are not compelled to join in, these tend consistently to vote in smaller numbers compared to their group’s size. Much smaller numbers. That is Why, and HOW, “No” lost! Furthermore, it will happen again, and again, until there is such a shift in the population of voters that the previously smaller voting block becomes the larger one and then, the people who were part of that complacent group of formerly large numbers, has no power to defend themselves any longer. The numbers show that when the total turnout was large, “NO” either won, or it was a really close match. The numbers also show that when there were small turnouts, the “No” vote was clobbered badly! It is clear to me that if more people in the state of Maine would have turned out, this would be a different story. A story of a great state, with liberal minded fair people, and a forward looking Governor, and legislators, with a great social policy. Lesson to be learned: If you don’t want a small group of crazy fanatic people governing your life, get the hell off your asses and vote for yourself because they will vote, and I mean, ALL of them, and it will take ALL we have to defeat them. Remember the way it went? They came for them, but I was not a member of their group so I said nothing; they came for the others and still I said nothing because I was not a member of that group; finally, they came for me, but there was no one left to defend me. Speak up, or else!
Clearly Christopher and his buddies are still reeling from Wednesday’s wake-up call that there’s more to Maine than Greater Portland.
And as for demographic shifts and biding your time, conservatives are the ones having babies, not liberals.
My heart goes out to the LGBTQA community in Maine. In Iowa, we are lucky in that it will be very difficult to overturn Marriage Rights for Lesbians and Gays, but we have no doubt that they will try, embolded by the Maine decision. It is NEVER right to let a majority vote on the rights of a minority, NOT in THIS country! Keep pushing! Time, Determination and the Tide of Humanity is in YOUR favor. If you can’t wait that long, move to Iowa. It truely is one of America’s best kept secrets.
The legislature was forward thinking? The legislature in Maine does not want to alienate a single constituent. They voted for the same-sex marriage Bill with full knowledge that it would come up for a vote. Did you think for a moment that they did not comprehend what the 10th Amendmentof the U.S. Constitution was for?
In 1996 President Clinton signed into Federal Law the Defense of Marriage Act or DOMA, which defined marriage as a union between one man and one woman. The Congress voted approx. 86%-14% Senate and 84%-16% in the House of Reps. for the Law.
Our current President, Barack Obama has gone on the record multiple times as defining marriage in the same manner. Maine is not unique (no pun intented, it was the 31st state to vote this way.
Colleen,
In what fantasy world are you living? Maine was not “taking leaps and bounds beyond other New England states.” Your state is the shame of New England. Habitually a laggard in every regard. Poorer, more economically moribund, and, obviously, WAY more intolerant than the rest of the region. Your blithe attitude about the vote treats this issue as if it were merely a tax abatement referendum. Once again, your state voted to treat gay Mainers as less equal than heterosexual Mainers. Your state has been voting on the rights of gays for almost 20 years now. Most of those votes have gone against fairness. You think Joe is an ass because he doesn’t want to live in a state like yours that validates discrimination at the ballot box? Well, there is one thing you and I agree on: Joe would be much happier in Massachusetts (or any of the other New England states). I am so thankful that the rest of New England is not like Maine. We find your never-ending ballot box bigotry to be unfathomable! Joe, skip Maine, come to the rest of New England. You will be much happier living amongst kinder, better educated, more tolerant people. As Norrie Hoyt said Vermont is lovely. It represents the best of New England (whilst Maine represents the worst).
More lies from the radical left about gay marriage.
Really, you lost, Shawn. Get over it and move on. Take your delusional misrepresentations of reality elsewhere.
This isn’t about rights. Neither the Maine Constitution nor the U.S. Constitution mention marriage. Constantly labeling everything a right only shows what total disregard the left has for the Constitution.
Moreover, you’re wrong. Maine’s economy is doing better than at least two states in the region – both Massachusetts and Rhode Island have a significantly higher unemployment rate than Maine.
To paint everyone who voted in a certain way in a bigot is, in fact, bigoted. You and Mike are the bigots, Shawn. I love how the left preaches tolerance and diversity, than labels everyone who disagrees with them a “bigot” because of how they voted.
Are you a Mainer? If not, I am thankful that you are not. If you are, please move. If you don’t like losing elections, try moving to say Iran, Saudi Arabia, or China. Then you won’t have to deal with the messy consequences of democracy or worry about whether something is a “right” or not, because nothing is.
But here in America – and especially in Maine – we live in a democratic society, where people get a chance to vote on things. And everytime people have voted on this extremist cause of yours, it’s lost.
31 and counting.
When will we have the 32nd state?
You and Joe, rather.
Actually, MIke it is you that should move to Saudi Arabia. It is people like you that want a theocracy. Gays should have the same right to civil marriage (not religious) as heterosexuals. Oh, yes, your side is so tolerant! No one on my side wants to deny your right to civil marriage. Murderers on death row, pedophiles, and convicted rapists are allowed to marry as long as they are straight. Your side are such hypocrites. If marriage were so sacred to all of you then certainly you wouldn’t allow such people to marry. Denying one group rights that the majority takes for granted as their birthright is bigotry pure and simple. There was a time when the majority would have voted for No Irish Need Apply signs. That too was bigotry. I would have a lot more respect for people like you if you at least didn’t add lying to the stain of your bigotry. This nation was supposed to be a republic not a democracy. In a republic the majority doesn’t get to vote on the rights of the minority. A democracy as you see it is just code for tyranny of the mob. I wonder how you would like it if Mainers voted to take away your right to marry? I wonder if you would still sing the praises of your beloved state? Somehow I doubt it.
P.S. The latest unemployment figures (As of October 2009) for Maine and Massachusetts are 7.6% and 8.4%. Significantly higher? Hardly! You can’t even be honest about basic statistics!
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