Democrat's House Bid Seems Sign of Allen Senate Try in Maine -- But He's Not Saying

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April 4, 2007
By Matthew Spieler,
CONGRESSIONAL QUARTERLY

Maine Democrat Chellie Pingree has plenty of political experience as a former state Senate president, the 2002 Democratic challenger to Republican Sen. Susan Collins and, until February, the leader of the government watchdog group Common Cause. Nonetheless, it seems virtually certain that she would not run in 2008 for Maine's 1st District House seat if six-term Democratic incumbent Tom Allen intended to seek re-election.

Thus, Pingree's filing of paperwork with the Federal Election Commission to raise money for a House campaign appears a tacit signal that Allen is going to proceed in 2008 with his own, long-expected challenge to Collins -- a candidacy that would make Maine a key battleground state in the partisan battle for control of the Senate.

But if you are looking for confirmation of an Allen Senate bid, you will not get it from the congressman's camp. When asked about the portent of Pingree's House campaign launch, Allen spokesman Mark Sullivan said, "You'll have to talk to Chellie Pingree about that." Sullivan added that Allen had "no timeline" to make his decision.

It is clearly Pingree's presumption that Allen will leave open the seat in the mostly coastal 1st District, which includes Portland, Maine's most populous city, and the state capital of Augusta.

In an interview published on the political Web site the Huffington Post, Pingree said, "I am planning to run for Congress and looking forward to taking on that challenge. In February, I left my position at Common Cause so that I could do this."

She spoke of Allen's prospective statewide race as a foregone conclusion, saying, "I expect that Congressman Allen will have a tremendous opportunity in his bid for the U.S. Senate in 2008. He will run a great campaign, and the frustration of Maine people with the current Republican administration will bolster his chances."

Collins' moderate politics fit the mold of the kind of Republicans who have long been popular in Maine, and she has consistently enjoyed solid job approval ratings. But Maine overall has been trending Democratic, and Collins will be running in a year in which the Democratic presidential nominee will more likely than not be favored to carry the state.

National and state Democratic strategists are banking on a bid by Allen to provide them with the top-tier challenger they have lacked in recent Senate campaigns. Pingree ran a game challenge to Collins in 2002 but was not well-known enough to threaten the popular incumbent, who won by 59 percent to 41 percent.

Democrats had an even bigger failure in 2006, when they gave moderate Republican Sen. Olympia J. Snowe, perhaps the state's most popular political figure, a virtual free pass in this politically competitive state. Snowe ran up 74 percent of the vote over Jean Hay Bright, her little-known Democratic opponent. Allen is expected to be a far stronger statewide candidate. Often described as eloquent and unabashedly liberal, Allen has proven himself an able congressional campaigner since his first contest in 1996, when he ousted one-term Republican Rep. James B. Longley Jr. Allen has won re-election easily ever since, regularly garnering more than 60 percent of the vote.

Still, sending Collins packing will be no easy task. A Survey USA poll released after the 2006 midterm elections showed Collins with a 73 percent approval rating, with just 23 percent disapproving of her job performance. She has cultivated a reputation as a centrist consensus builder and has a close partnership on the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee with Joseph I. Lieberman, the longtime Connecticut Democratic senator who now serves as an independent. Lieberman chairs that committee and Collins is the ranking Republican.

And while Collins might have some concerns about a presidential coattails effect, it is not a certainty. In 2000, Maine gave its electoral votes to Democrat Al Gore but at the same time re-elected Snowe. Yet the strong Democratic tide in New England would have to give pause to just about any GOP incumbent in the region.

Entering the 2006 campaign, Rhode Island's Lincoln Chafee -- the most liberal Republican senator -- appeared popular in his strongly Democratic-leaning home state, but ended up losing the general election to Democrat Sheldon Whitehouse. Republicans' losses of both House seats in New Hampshire and two seats in Connecticut left Connecticut's Christopher Shays as the only Republican among New England's 22 House members, a stunning turnabout in a region once famed as the bastion of "Yankee Republicanism."

The 2008 campaign will establish whether Collins is vulnerable to a competitive challenge -- or is settling in like Snowe as a political fixture. Collins' career as a candidate got off to a bad start in 1994 when she finished third in the race for governor behind Independent victor Angus King and Democrat Joseph E. Brennan, himself a former governor. But she rebounded just two years later to score a narrow Senate victory over Brennan, and greatly extended her margin in her 2002 race with Pingree.

© 2006 Congressional Quarterly