Despite his big win at the polls last year, U.S. Rep. Bruce Poliquin may be vulnerable.

A new poll from a Democratic-oriented nonprofit found the two-term Republican is essentially in a dead heat against a generic Democrat in Maine’s 2nd District.

The Patriot Majority USA poll conducted after Poliquin’s vote last week in favor of a GOP plan to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act determined the incumbent trailed 44-43, a statistically meaningless difference.

In November, Poliquin defeated Democratic challenger Emily Cain by a 55-45 margin in one of the costliest congressional campaigns in the nation, a large enough victory to give any potential future challenger pause.

So far Poliquin has only one declared opponent for his reelection bid next year, political newcomer Phil Cleaves, a rural mail carrier, but other Democrats are trying to determine if there’s a chance of knocking out the GOP veteran.

His health care bill vote may have provided them with an opening.

Based largely on the health care issue, University of Virginia Prof. Larry Sabato, a long-time politics watcher, this week shifted Poliquin’s district from a likely GOP win next year to one that merely leans Republican.

He based the decision on both the health care vote and election tallies that showed Donald Trump did better than expected in the district last year, outperforming Mitt Romney in 2012.

As Sabato’s Crystal Ball site makes clear, if Democrats hope to recapture the House in the next election, they need to “snap back” districts like Poliquin’s that “are filled with the white working-class voters who have been trending away from Democrats in recent years.”

The Cook Political Report continues to list Poliquin as a likely winner.

For Democrats, a major challenge is to find a candidate who can perform at least as well as the unidentified, generic Democrat pollsters often use.

Poliquin doesn’t have much public flash, and avoids confrontation, but he’s a hard-working congressman who gets around his district regularly. With wide name recognition and few enemies, he’s not going to be an easy target even if Republicans as a whole are on the run in Trump’s first midterm election.

The pollsters said that in Poliquin’s district, 29 percent of voters said they were more likely to back Poliquin because of his support for the Trumpcare measure while 43 percent said they are less likely to support him.

Poliquin is viewed less favorably than Trump in his sprawling district, the poll found. Trump gets favorable ratings from 46 percent of voters and unfavorable ones from 40 percent of them.

Clarity Campaign Labs contacted 805 voters in the district for the nonprofit before the political group began running advertisements this week bashing Poliquin and other House Republicans who may be in trouble in their 2018 reelection bids.

There are also new ads in the works from pro-Poliquin GOP groups who plan to tout his support for the health care measure.

U.S. Rep. Bruce Poliquin

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