In the race for every last electoral vote, Democrats in Maine are holding out hope that they can flip the second congressional district to Vice President Harris. With less than ten days before Election Day, however, the odds are growing longer.

President Trump won Maine’s second congressional district — the largest and most rural district east of the Mississippi — in 2016 and 2020 by more than seven percentage points. Maine is one of only two states — Nebraska is the other — that divides its electoral votes by congressional district.

Yet it’s rare for either state to split its electoral vote — both have done it only twice. Trump’s victory in the second district in 2016 was the first time Maine split its votes. Nebraska also split its electoral vote in 2020, a sign of the growing rural-urban partisan divide.

“It’s true that former President Trump starts with an advantage, but there are a few things that are different this year than they were four years ago,” a Democratic strategist in Maine, David Farmer, tells the Sun. “I do not think she has a 5-point advantage lead that the University of New Hampshire poll from earlier this year suggests, but I think the district has the potential to change back.”

A University of New Hampshire poll in August showed Ms. Harris with a five-point lead against Trump. An Axis Research poll sponsored by the National Republican Congressional Committee in early October showed Trump with only a two-point lead. Surrogates traveled to the state, though neither principal for either the Harris-Walz or Trump-Vance tickets has come to Maine this cycle.

Mr. Farmer says the two key differences this year are abortion and redistricting. Maine’s second may be populated largely by white working class voters, but the state is one of the least religious in the nation. Mr. Farmer says the overturning of Roe v. Wade may be a driving force to get women out to the polls and vote Democratic.

The Democratic Party is investing in the district with 14 field offices this year, up from 11 in 2020. After redistricting, the second district got geographically larger and “a hair more Democratic,” Mr. Farmer says. On a recent drive through the district, the Sun saw far more Harris-Walz lawn signs than expected.

Yet as Trump has gained momentum this past month and the Real Clear Politics average shows him leading in all swing states, Trump’s lead in Maine’s second district is also widening. The two most recent polls, according to 538, show Trump with a nine-point advantage.

Governor Walz’s wife, Gwen Walz, canceled a trip to Maine earlier last week.

“The second district of Maine will never vote to send a gun-grabbing California progressive to the White House,” a Maine state senator and executive director of the Free State Project, Eric Brakey, tells the Sun.

Guns are a major issue in the “toss up” congressional race in Maine’s second district between a moderate, gun-owning Democrat incumbent, Jared Golden, and a Republican stock car driver and state senator, Austin Theriault. This race is drawing national attention as it could help decide the balance of power in Washington. 

Friday marked the one-year anniversary of the mass shooting in Lewiston, in which 18 persons were killed in a restaurant and bowling alley. The state’s Democratic governor, Janet Mills, signed several new gun restrictions into law last spring. 

In the wake of the shooting, Mr. Golden, who had a grade A rating from the National Rifle Association, reversed his stance and came out in favor of a national assault weapons ban. This may come back to haunt him.

“Maine was a wonderful place for people that enjoyed exercising their Second Amendment, but then they had the shooting in Lewiston,” a NRA certified pistol instructor who bought land in Maine’s second congressional district for his retirement, Dom Bastile, tells the Sun. “All I wanted to do was retire and shoot my guns. Now New Hampshire is looking better.”

New Hampshire is also looking better for Trump, according to an Emerson poll released Thursday, which finds Trump trailing Ms. Harris by only three points — a big jump from the double-digit lead she held in September. NH Journal reports that the Trump campaign is sending last minute resources for field operations in the hopes they can flip the state.