Over the past 52 years, Harpswell has seen a gradual but dramatic shift from a Republican to a Democratic stronghold, according to an analysis of presidential election results.
In 1972, Republican votes filled the ballot box, with 68.4% of voters choosing Richard Nixon over George McGovern. This past election, a Democrat exceeded 60% of the Harpswell vote for the second consecutive election and just the second time in a half-century.
The tipping point occurred in 1992 — a result, experts say, of party realignment, demographic changes and increasing polarization.
Nixon’s dominant performance in ’72 was the most lopsided margin for either party in the past 52 years.
Republicans kept the majority for the next five elections and surpassed 60% two more times — Ronald Reagan’s landslide reelection in 1984 and George H.W. Bush’s election in 1988.
Harpswell turned blue in 1992, when President George H.W. Bush lost to Bill Clinton. Democrats didn’t gain votes from 1988, but Republicans lost votes to independent Ross Perot. Perot received 28.4% of the vote in Harpswell, the best performance for a third-party candidate in the past 52 years.
The 2020 and 2024 presidential elections, meanwhile, saw Harpswell vote Democratic in the highest numbers of the last 52 years. Last November’s 60.9% vote for then-Vice President Kamala Harris fell less than a half-point short of Joe Biden’s 61.3% in 2020.
2024 also marked the sixth straight election, dating back to 2004, in which the Democratic candidate has received more than 54% of the vote in Harpswell.
Support for Republicans, meanwhile, has held steady through the last five presidential elections, dating back to 2008. It has only moved about 4 points — from a high of 40.7% in 2008 to a low of 36.6% in 2020.
The Democratic vote has remained within 6 points since 2008 — fluctuating from a high of 61.3% in 2020 to a low of 55.6% in 2012.
Harpswell has voted the same way as the state of Maine for every election in the last 52 years, and the same way as Cumberland County in all but one — Harpswell gave Ronald Reagan a 10-point edge in 1980, while the county as a whole backed Jimmy Carter.
Click here to learn about how the results varied by voting district in Harpswell.
An analysis of presidential election results from Harpswell’s three voting districts from 1972-2016 shows the areas mimicking the town’s leftward shift, but not all to the same degree.
The three districts, as determined in 1942, are Great Island, Orr’s and Bailey Islands, and the Mainland. The districts were combined in July 2020, and the town ceased to record results by district.
For more than 40 years, all three districts followed similar trends. They backed the same candidate in almost every election. Each district opted for Republican candidates until 1992, switching to Democratic candidates in each election afterward.
One of two exceptions came in 2016, when Great Island voted for Republican Donald Trump by a razor-thin 0.6% margin, while the other two districts backed Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton.
The other exception was in 2000, when Orr’s and Bailey swung to Republican George W. Bush by about 5 points. The other two districts supported Democrat Al Gore.
Great Island cast the highest percentage of votes for a Republican candidate in 1972, when 70.6% of the district voted for Richard Nixon. From 2008-2016, Great Island recorded more than 45% support for Republican candidates, the only district to surpass that mark.
But Great Island hasn’t always been the most conservative district. Orr’s and Bailey islands recorded the highest percentage of Republican support in six of the 12 elections analyzed, Great Island in four and the Mainland in two.
The Mainland district has been the most consistently Democratic, with the highest percentage of Democratic votes in eight of the 12 elections analyzed. This includes the 57.6% of voters who cast ballots for Democrat Barack Obama in 2012, the highest mark for the party in any district from 1972 through 2016.
Orr’s and Bailey Islands demonstrated the most variance of the three districts. For example, in 1976, the islands had the highest Democratic percentage by nearly 3 points. Eight years later, in 1984, the district flipped to cast the highest percentage of Republican votes by 6 points. In more recent elections, the islands settled roughly between the other two districts — more Republican than the Mainland but more Democratic than Great Island.
The 2008-2016 tabulations were affected by absentee votes, which are counted separately from the tabulations for each district. These skewed Democratic, with more than 60% of the vote in all three elections.
Parties shift, voters sort
One reason for the shift in Harpswell is ideological change within the parties, according to Christian Potholm, a former professor of government at Bowdoin College and author of the recent book “How Maine Decides.”
Potholm said the Republican Party in the 1970s was the pro-choice and pro-environment party. Its “live and let live” philosophy was starkly different from the modern GOP, he said, with its opposition to abortion rights and environmental regulations.
Those positions are “180 degrees away from the Republican Party in 1972,” Potholm said.
For example, a 1972 Gallup Poll showed 68% of Republicans supported abortion rights, outnumbering 59% of Democrats. On the environmental front, Nixon signed the Clean Water Act and the Endangered Species Act in 1972 and ’73, respectively.
Since the 1970s, the Republican Party has shifted toward social conservatism while Democrats picked up “the mantle of progressivism,” said Mike Franz, a professor of government at Bowdoin College who teaches a course on voting behavior. One key turn was the Democratic Party’s support for the 1964 Civil Rights Act.
This led to a “period of sorting,” as Franz put it. It takes a lot for people to abandon their political identity, so when the parties shift, there is a “slow evolution” as voters realign with the party that best matches their beliefs.
Rapid growth alters demographics
Demographic changes are another reason for Harpswell’s swing to the left.
In 1972, Harpswell was primarily a fishing town, with a little more than 2,500 residents. The population has doubled since, with the town gaining 1,244 residents from the 1970 census to the 1980 census, and another 1,216 from 1980 to 1990.
Many of the new residents are retirees and commuters, said Jack O’Brien, an associate professor of mathematics at Bowdoin who developed a statistical model that analyzes historical election results.
Newcomers from out of state have skewed Democratic, slowly changing Harpswell’s political profile. Franz said those recent arrivals tend to come from Democratic states.
A 2023 analysis by The Maine Monitor showed that the top three states people left behind for Maine in 2022 were Democratic strongholds — Massachusetts, New York and California.
Potholm said that in addition to population growth, working-class families have been forced out of Harpswell, further changing the demographics.
“Republicans died off (or) had to move out of town if they couldn’t afford living on the ocean, and the people that came in and replaced them were Democrats,” Potholm said. “I don’t think it’s more complicated than that.”
Despite electoral dominance, Dems lack majority
Despite their dominance in recent elections, Democrats do not make up a majority of registered voters in Harpswell. The town rolls count 1,786 Democrats to 1,276 unenrolled voters and 1,128 Republicans.
This unenrolled 29.2% of the electorate does not necessarily represent swing voters, Franz said. Rather, these voters tend to lean one way or another.
“Mainers really like that idea that they can vote and would vote for the best person for the job,” Franz said. “I don’t always think that they act like that, but I do think that’s sort of a narrative for them that is part of the Maine political culture.”
Beneficiaries of this culture include U.S. Sen. Angus King, one of two independent senators. King, a former two-term governor of Maine, is allied with Democrats but has kept the independent label.
Mainers also support “quasi-independents,” as Franz put it, or politicians who are willing to break with their party, such as U.S. Sen. Susan Collins or former U.S. Sen. Olympia Snowe, both Republicans, as well as Democratic U.S. Rep. Jared Golden.
Polarization favors status quo
Dave Emery, a former Republican U.S. representative from Maine, described Harpswell as a town with a strong interest in environmental protection, moderate views on social issues, and deep concerns about national and international issues.
Franz said the town’s strong Democratic votes in the last two presidential elections are symptomatic of polarization in Maine and in the nation.
“Coastal, more liberal Mainers are finding the Republican Party of today a bit distasteful, and so they are moving towards the Democratic Party,” he said.
Franz said polarization makes people interpret the world through their own political lens.
“Everybody rationalizes or tries to make the circumstances fit their perception of reality at that time because we’re so polarized, and because the parties have such antipathy towards each other,” Franz said.
Franz added that Democratic coastal towns often have a vocal Republican constituency, which may find the blue shift “a bit problematic.”
This can cause tension in towns like Harpswell, Franz said, as national polarization may extend to local issues such as taxes and education. This polarization makes it difficult for Republican candidates, especially those who support the party’s national politicians, to compete for a seat.
Jay McCreight, a Democratic state representative from Harpswell from 2014-2022, said that when she first ran for office, voters were more interested in the person than the party. She said it was a fulfilling experience to knock on doors and discuss issues with constituents.
More recently, she was knocking on doors for another candidate, “and it was a very different experience of real negativity,” McCreight said. “It was sad. And I hope we’re going to move away from that. We have to. We can’t go on like this.”
While Franz said it’s always possible that “outside factors will dislodge a party from dominance,” he said polarization makes another shift unlikely.
Potholm agreed. “It is much more likely that it would continue the way it is now than that it would change dramatically,” he said. “I don’t see what would change.”
