An election official hands an “I voted today” sticker to a woman after she cast her ballot in the mid-term election, Tuesday, Nov. 6, 2018, in Auburn, Maine. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty)

A majority of voters casting midterm election ballots in Maine said the country is headed in the wrong direction, according to a wide-ranging survey of the American electorate.

As voters cast ballots for governor, U.S. Senate and members of Congress in Tuesday’s elections, AP VoteCast found that 35 percent of Maine voters said the country is on the right track, compared with 65 percent who said the country is headed in the wrong direction.

Here’s a snapshot of who voted and why in Maine, based on preliminary results from AP VoteCast, an innovative nationwide survey of about 135,000 voters and nonvoters — including 762 voters and 209 nonvoters in the state of Maine — conducted for The Associated Press by NORC at the University of Chicago.

TOP ISSUE: HEALTH CARE

Health care was at the forefront of voters’ minds: 38 percent named it as the most important issue facing the nation in this year’s midterm elections. Others considered immigration (20 percent), the economy (18 percent), the environment (7 percent) and gun policy (6 percent) to be the top issue.

STATE OF THE ECONOMY

Advertisement

Voters have a positive view of the nation’s current economic outlook _ 63 percent said the nation’s economy is good, compared with 36 percent who said it’s not good.

TRUMP FACTOR

For 38 percent of Maine voters, President Donald Trump was not a factor they considered while casting their vote. By comparison, 61 percent said Trump was a reason for their vote.

CONTROL OF CONGRESS

Tuesday’s elections will determine control of Congress in the final two years of Trump’s first term in office, and 57 percent of Maine voters said which party will hold control was very important as they considered their vote. Another 28 percent said it was somewhat important.

AP VoteCast is a survey of the American electorate in all 50 states conducted by NORC at the University of Chicago for The Associated Press and Fox News. The survey of 762 voters and 209 nonvoters in Maine was conducted Oct. 29 to Nov. 6, concluding as polls close on Election Day. Interviews in English and Spanish with self-identified registered voters selected from opt-in online panels are calibrated with interviews of randomly sampled registered voters nationwide. The margin of sampling error for voters is estimated to be plus or minus 10.1 percentage points. Although there is no statistically agreed upon approach for calculating margins of error for non-probability samples, the margin of error is estimated using a calculation called the root mean squared error and other statistical adjustments. All surveys are subject to multiple sources of error, including from sampling, question wording and order, and nonresponse. Find more details about AP VoteCast’s methodology at http://www.ap.org/votecast.

This story will be updated


Only subscribers are eligible to post comments. Please subscribe or login first for digital access. Here’s why.

Use the form below to reset your password. When you've submitted your account email, we will send an email with a reset code.

filed under: