Poll: Independent King up big in Maine Senate race

Former Maine Gov. Angus King (I) holds a huge lead over his Democratic and Republican opponents in Maine's open-seat Senate race, according to a new poll from WBUR.

King receives the backing of 50 percent of those polled, while Maine Secretary of State Charlie Summers (R) gets 23 percent support and state Rep. Cynthia Dill (D) gets 9 percent backing in the first poll conducted since the state's primary last week.

The former governor benefits from both name recognition and the positive feelings voters have for him. Sixty percent of voters have a positive opinion of King, according to the poll, while only 21 percent are negatively disposed towards him. 

The poll goes a long way in explaining why national Democrats haven't been willing to show any support for Dill. The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee didn't even release a statement congratulating Dill on her primary win, and Chairwoman Patty Murray (D-Wash.) refused to tell The Hill which candidate she was backing in the general election last week.

While King has adamantly refused to say which party he'd caucus with, both parties expect he'll caucus with the Democrats should he win.

The poll of 506 likely voters was conducted by the think tank MassINC from June 13-14 and has a margin of error of 4.4 percentage points.

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