Dill Crushes Maietta, Wins Maine Senate District

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Despite a close race for the District in 2010, Democratic Representative Cynthia Dill beat former Republican Representative Louie Maietta by a more than two-to-one margin on May 10 to win the Senate District 7 special election.

With 5,056 to Maietta's 2,405, Dill won in all three towns in the district, winning by the most in Maietta's home town of South Portland.

The victory comes despite a harsh campaign [2] waged by the Republicans that included attacks on Dill for stepping on a plaque commemorating local veterans and a series of fliers sent to homes in the district asking if Dill had become "unplugged," attacking her for raising taxes and comparing her to a circus performer.

Conservative group Still Fed Up With Taxes also sent a piece to the district apparently misinterpreting a satirical blog post by Dill about guns.

In the end, the negative campaigning seems to have backfired, likely in part because Maietta's own nose wasn't exactly clean. As MPBN reported earlier this month [3], he faced a series of liens for unpaid taxes and a judgement against him ordering repayment of more than $770,000 that he took from a ninety-six-year-old woman for whom he once held power of attorney.

Compounding this political problem was the fact that the candidate wasn't around to answer the charges. Maietta spent some of the waning days of the campaign at his daughter's destination wedding in the Caribbean and both he and his campaign manager refused to return repeated phone calls from reporters.

In addition to the local factors, a victory of this size by Dill might also be seen as a rebuke of governor Paul LePage. Dill has been one of his most vocal critics and has proposed legislation that would allow Maine people to recall a sitting governor.

While most legislative races are determined by local issues and candidate personalities and work ethics, the size of Dill's victory seems to imply that there was more going on in District 7. For her to win by such a wide margin in a district that was so close only a year ago doesn't bode well for legislative Republicans in 2012.