Maine’s year-round island communities followed the state’s pattern on Election Day, voting down TABOR, the Taxpayer Bill of Rights, while re-electing both of Maine’s Democratic congressmen, Gov. John Baldacci and U.S. Sen. Olympia Snowe.
TABOR fared particularly poorly in island communities, perhaps reflecting widespread fear that the proposed spending cap would cripple local services such as schools (WWF Oct. 2006). Margins against TABOR in some places were two to one or greater: Vinalhaven voted 371-168 against it, for example; Monhegan rejected it 49-9; Frenchboro was 32-4 against; Isle au Haut voted it down 35-11.
Gov. Baldacci won in all island communities except Swan’s Island, where Republican Chandler Woodcock beat him by 5 votes, 89-83. Baldacci’s margins over Woodcock on Great Cranberry, Islesford, Frenchboro, Isle au Haut, North Haven, Vinalhaven, Monhegan and the Casco Bay islands were better than two to one, although significant numbers of voters on Monhegan and Islesford also favored independent Barbara Merrill and Green Party candidate Pat LaMarche.
Donna M. Damon, who was active in Chebeague island’s recent successful effort to secede from mainland Cumberland (WWF Sept. 06), lost her race for the legislature to Meredith S. Burgess by a margin of about 5 percent.
–David D. Platt