PORTLAND, Maine—Nikki Haley has zero chance of defeating Donald J. Trump in Maine’s Super Tuesday primary, notwithstanding the widespread disdain for Trump among some state voters—typically, more affluent members of the professional classes.
That’s the view of Ryan McMann, chair of the Portland branch of the Maine GOP, who described a desperate and out-of-control scene at a Haley rally at the Elks Lodge in Portland on March 3, where supporters of presidential aspirant Ms. Haley gathered.
“Trump, I predict, will, by far and away, win the contest. There really isn’t a contest here in Portland,” Mr. McMann told The Epoch Times.
After a long series of crushing defeats in other states, Ms. Haley had sought to shore up her campaign and keep a bit of the momentum going from her March 3 victory in Washington’s primary contest.
But, judging from the scene at Elks Lodge later that same day, she does not command wide support in Maine’s largest city or even among its Republicans. Even the state’s liberal complexion and the aversion to Mr. Trump among members of both parties in Maine could not help her.
According to Mr. McMann, the turnout at the Elks Lodge was limited to 200 people, and he found, in the course of interviewing attendees, that a significant number were not registered Republicans at all—suggesting that non-GOP Trump-haters in the state may have hoped to undermine Trump’s campaign by keeping Ms. Haley’s alive.
Mr. Trump, who won the state’s Second Congressional District, north of Portland and other coastal towns, in 2016 and 2020 even though he lost the state both times, is now outperforming President Joe Biden in Maine.
Trump in the Lead
Portland is far from a hotbed of support for Mr. Trump; on the contrary, even among Republicans, he is a divisive figure.In the 2020 election, President Joe Biden defeated Mr. Trump by a large margin, winning 53.09 percent of the statewide vote, or 435,072 votes, to his opponent’s 44.02 percent, or 360,737.
Support for President Biden was strongest in Portland and its suburbs, while the pockets of deepest support for Mr. Trump were those in the rural northern and northwestern parts of the state.
The fact that turnout for Ms. Haley on March 3 was so tepid and that some supporters at the Elks Lodge were not even Republicans, speaks to a huge disparity between the momentum of the Trump campaign and that of Ms. Haley.
“I can tell you that in greater Portland, there is more Never Trump sentiment than in other parts of the state. That being said, I was at the rally last night collecting signatures, and we have to basically ask people their party affiliation in order to get Republicans on the ballot.
“And there were a large number of non-Republicans in the audience last night. I would have guessed 100, maybe 200, but it certainly wasn’t more than that. I don’t think it was that great of a showing,” Mr. McMann said.
The sputtering of Ms. Haley’s campaign seemed to play out in real-time at the Elks Lodge event, where even on those issues that voters of either party tend to be highly responsive to—namely, the crisis at the border—Ms. Haley failed to galvanize much support.
“Somebody I was there with noted that when the border crisis was brought up, there weren’t many cheers for Nikki Haley’s comments, but when anti-Trump sentiment was brought up when Haley made some negative remarks about Trump, there were a lot of cheers in the audience,” Mr. McMann said.
Not a Trump Shoo-In
Compared to deep red states, Maine and Portland especially should have been among the more promising locations for a “Never Trump” challenger, Mr. McMann believes.Ms. Haley’s failure to mobilize more Republicans against Mr. Trump is all the more striking given what Mr. McMann, alluding to the outcomes of 2020, 2016, and earlier races, described as a longstanding aversion on the part of educated, affluent Republicans in the state toward Mr. Trump’s brand of shoot-from-the-hip populism.
“To me, there tends to be more of a professional class versus working class breakdown, where Trump was successful in winning over previously blue parts of the Second District, where there were working-class Democrats previously, farming families. Trump won them over. And he won the Second District twice, but where it’s McCain and Romney didn’t win previously,” Mr. McMann said.
“So he clearly is more successful, but definitely there is, among the professional class—the lawyers, the doctors, and some people in real estate— strong anti-Trump sentiment. They just don’t like this style,” he added.
Mr. Trump’s challenger failed to mobilize much support in a part of the state where Mr. Trump did not perform well in 2020 especially.
Throughout his tenure as local GOP head, Mr. McMann said he has seen over and over the workings of an urban-rural divide that Ms. Haley ought to have been able to seize upon in Portland. But her campaign stop at the Elks Lodge was too little, too late.
“Trump’s opponents got as many signatures as Trump did in greater Portland, but if you took that same petition up north a little bit, it’s not even a contest,” Mr. McMann said.
The Epoch Times has reached out to the Haley campaign for comment.
