Want the scoop on hot races around the country? Get the digest emailed to you each weekday morning. Sign up here. Leading Off: ' ME-Sen: Public Policy Polling's first look at the 2014 Maine Senate race finds that, no surprise, Democrats have a tough row to hoe here so long as three-term incumbent Susan Collins is the GOP nominee. Collins has one of the most balanced, across-the-boards approval profiles possible: She's at 66/24 approvals among Republicans, 64/24 among indies, and 60/25 among Democrats. Predictably, Collins has big leads, even against the state's top-tier Democrats:
' 54-36 vs. Rep. Mike Michaud' 58-33 vs. Rep. Chellie Pingree
There's a big "but," however. Even though Collins is well above water among Republicans, voters describing themselves as "very conservative" would like to replace her, by a 75-22 margin, and she leads a generic "more conservative" GOP challenger in a hypothetical primary only 49-46. Tom Jensen points out that Lisa Murkowski started out the 2010 cycle with an even better approval among GOPers (77/13), and think back to how that primary turned out.
So, with that possibility in mind, they also tested Republican ex-SoS, and 2012 Senate race loser, Charlie Summers against the same Dems. There's been absolutely no mention of Summers being interested in such a race, and he's not even from the flamethrowing school of Republicanism that would ignite the "very conservative" segment of the party, but if nothing else, he's probably the best the GOP bench has to offer these days'and yet "the best" is still not very good:
' 32-57 vs. Michaud' 39-50 vs. Pingree
The results suggest that the GOP's hold on the Maine Senate seat pretty much goes away at the same time that Collins does, given how poorly Summers fares.
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