The national media is starting to take interest in Maine lawmakers’ thus far futile attempt to reach a consensus on a new congressional redistricting plan.

This week the Pew-funded Stateline filed a report focusing on how the redistricting plan advanced by Republicans could impact the 2012 presidential race.

If the GOP plan is enacted in 2012, it could push about 10,000 Republican voters into the 2nd District, according to some projections.

Making the 2nd District more Republican, and the 1st more Democratic, could be important in 2012 because Maine is one of just two states that awards its electoral votes by the congressional district method.

In Maine and Nebraska, electoral votes are based on the popular vote winner within each congressional district, meaning a presidential candidate who loses the statewide vote could still pick up an electoral vote if he or she wins in one of the districts.

In Maine, the winner of the statewide popular vote receives two additional electoral votes.

The Maine system has been in place since 1972, Nebraska’s since 1996. Maine has never divided its electoral votes. Nebraska has split once, in 2008, when President Obama won that state’s largely Democratic 2nd District.

National pundits have often speculated on whether Maine could split, but they may have more fodder in 2012 if the GOP redistricting plan is enacted and the presidential race is close.

No presidential election has been decided by a single electoral vote since 1876 when Republican Rutherford B. Hayes defeated Democrat Samuel Tilden. But as Stateline suggests, one electoral vote could matter in 2012 if Obama loses Florida, Indiana, Ohio, Nevada, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania and Nebraska’s 2nd Congressional District.

“In that case,” Stateline noted, “Maine’s 2nd District would be the difference between a 270-268 Obama victory and a 269-269 tie, with the presidency decided by the U.S. House of Representatives.”

Some Democrats have accused Republicans of advancing a radical plan to serve the National Republican Committee’s interests in the 2012 presidential race.

Dan Billings, Gov. Paul LePage’s chief legal counsel, told the Sun Journal last week that such criticism was unfounded and that nobody “on the commission” had been in contact with the RNC.

Of course, the RNC could very well have contacted others involved in the remapping who don’t serve on the 15-member redistricting commission, just as the Democratic National Committee could be doing the same.

If the 2012 presidential race could be impacted, it’s conceivable, if not likely, that national interests are involved.

Meddling from national GOP interests has been the focus, but last week some Democrats dropped clues indicating that their cause could receive national backing, if it hasn’t already. 

Some GOP members on the commission have suggested that Republicans will circumvent the Legislature’s two-thirds majority requirement to pass their plan. That rhetoric prompted Democratic lawmakers to raise the possibility of a people’s veto effort to overturn the GOP plan if it’s enacted.

Citizen initiatives are expensive, especially the ones that have to happen quickly. An effort to overturn a redistricting plan certainly qualifies if the 2012 election is a consideration.

If the GOP plan is a real threat to Democrats’ presidential and congressional election chances, it’s possible a national group would step in to fight it.

It seems unlikely that Maine Democrats would discuss the prospect of a people’s veto if they didn’t already have assurances that such an effort would receive national backing.

Then again, the people’s veto rhetoric could be a strategy to encourage court intervention, an all but certain outcome if it looks as though a plan won’t be in place by the January deadline.

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