AS MAINE VOTES.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LX, Issue 244, 12 September 1940, Page 6

AS MAINE VOTES.

“As Maine goes, so goes tho nation,” is a well-known electioneering saying in the United States. Particular interest therefore is attached to the Congressional elections in Maine which take place two months before the Presidential contest and in advance also of elections in the other States'. In all the five major contests, states a cablegram from Portland, the Republicans are leading the Democrats by a substantial margin, and the voting is giving rise to jubilation in the ranks of Republicans. But whether history will repeat itself as in 1932 or in 1936 remains to be seen, for not always is the saying borne out by subsequent events. In 1932 there was a swing from Republican to Democrat sentiment. With few exceptions the State’s vote had been staunchly Republican since 1883, and in the years of Democratic Presidential victories had given its support to the opposite party. But Maine in that year .was an excellent augury for the Democratic Party’s success which ended with Mr Roosevelt’s shattering victory, which he repeated four years later. But in 1936 Maine showed that a political axiom cannot always be trustworthy. for though the Republicans captured three seats, including the governorship and the Federal senatorship from the Democrats, the nation could not be persuaded to give its preference to Mr London and dismiss Mr Roosevelt. It was then aptly remarked that Maine being normally Republican the voting was not "an accurate barometer for the November elections. Once again the State has returned completely to its traditional party and the view is expressed that the end is in sight of the Roosevelt Administration. If this should prove to.be so then the nation will have expressed its view without equivocation on the third term question, but it may well prove to be the case that, as in 1936, Maine’s voting is not an accurate barometer.