The ME-02 was one of only four House seats that the RATs picked up in 1994; the other two were the RI-01, the PA-14 and the MN-06. All four seats had the GOP incumbent vacate it to run for higher office: Snowe (ME), Santorum (PA) and Grams (MN) were elected to the U.S. Senate, while Machtley (RI) lost the gubernatorial primary to Lincoln Almond). In addition, the MN-06 was greatly altered in mid-decade redistricting by the RAT legislature (the 1992 lines had been drawn by a judge after RINO Governor Arne Carlsson vetoed the RAT maps; Carlsson tried to pocket-veto the 1994 maps or something, but the RATs claimed that he hadn’t vetoed thd bill properly, and it became law); the ME-02 was redrawn for 1994 as well (ME used to redistrict two years after everyone else ), but the changes were minor.
I believe that a few towns went from the ME-01 to the ME-02 in 1994, and have stayed in the ME-02 since. That means that those few towns haven’t had a Republican U.S. Representative since RINO John McKernan (Olympia Snowe’s husband) was elected governor in 1986 and replaced by a Democrat in the House, which is the longest streak in all of Northern New England. (In New England as a whole, the only areas that have gone longer without a GOP U.S. Representative are the towns that were in the CT-01 or the CT-03 after each of the 1980, 1990 and 2000 Censuses, and the towns in MA that were not in Conte’s MA-01 in the late 1980s or in Blute’s MA-04 or Torkildsen’s MA-06 in the early 1990s.)
Of the 4 I wonder about Gram’s seat, was something wrong with Tad Jude?