Maine was won by GovernorBill Clinton (D-Arkansas) with 38.77% of the popular vote over businessman Ross Perot (I-Texas) with 30.44%. Incumbent president George H. W. Bush (R-Texas) finished in third, close behind Perot, with 30.39% of the popular vote.[1] Despite the Bush family having ties to Maine, with Bush owning a house in Kennebunkport, Maine, Perot beat Bush for second place in the state by a slim margin of 316 votes, making Maine one of two states where Perot finished better than third place, the other being Utah,[2] though Maine was the only state of the two where Perot won any counties. Clinton ultimately won the national vote, defeating both incumbent President Bush and Perot.[3] Perot's 30.44% would prove Maine as his strongest state in the 1992 election.[4] Ross Perot came within 4.55% of winning an electoral vote in Maine's second congressional district, the closest he came to winning an electoral vote. In Maine's first congressional district, Bush finished in second place, with the 8.11% margin being the closest Bush would come in 1992 to winning an electoral vote in New England after New Hampshire and Connecticut.
Clinton was the first Democrat to carry the state of Maine since 1968 when Hubert Humphrey, running with Maine Senator Edmund Muskie as vice-presidential candidate, did so.[5] Maine has not voted Republican in any subsequent presidential elections, though Donald Trump would win a single electoral vote from Maine's 2nd district in 2016, 2020 and 2024.
As of 2024, this is the last time that a sitting president finished third in a state or (along with Utah) that a non-major party candidate would come in second or better.
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