Next year will prove to be a fascinating year politically, across the country but especially here in Maine. It’s already easy to discern a number of themes — apart from the issues themselves — running through the top-tier contests for governor, United States Senate and Congress.

We see, again and again, insider-outsider battles; younger, newer candidates against older, more experienced ones; and evidence of the widening rift between centrists and liberals in the Democratic Party. 

There’s a fundamental question underlying all of these questions, however: Just how politically independent is Maine? Historically, Maine has a tendency to go its own way. Sometimes we go in line with the national trends, to be sure.

Paul LePage, for instance, was elected governor in a strong year for Republicans nationally. The way in which he did it was unique, however. The campaign of the Democratic nominee, Libby Mitchell, fell apart, and independent Eliot Cutler nearly defeated him.

Back in 1994, in another strong Republican year, Democrat Joe Baldacci was the only Democrat anywhere in the country to win an open U.S. House seat. He defeated Rick Bennett, then (and now) a Republican state senator who’s now running for governor as an independent.

In the gubernatorial election that year, Maine similarly bucked trends, electing independent Angus King over Republican Susan Collins and Democrat Joe Brennan. Two years later, she’d go on to defeat Brennan for the U.S. Senate seat even while Democrats carried Maine in the presidential election. 

Today, Maine is still a divided state, to be sure. Donald Trump won an electoral vote from the 2nd District in each of his presidential runs. However, that mirrored, rather than bucked, a national trend. He did similarly well in rural, working-class areas that Democrats had previously won. He created his own brand, apart from the traditional Republican Party, that appealed to working-class voters in a new way; LePage did the same in Maine in his gubernatorial campaigns.

At the congressional level, though, the 2nd District behaved differently, electing first Bruce Poliquin to succeed Democrat Mike Michaud, then Democrat Jared Golden. Golden consistently won reelection by winning over many Trump-LePage voters, but he also drew the ire of his own party time and time again.

The question of how independent Maine really is today will be a factor in all the major races, albeit in different ways.

In the 2nd District race, will it give a ready advantage to Paul LePage now that Jared Golden isn’t running? The district has trended Republican in recent years, and not just in federal races, but in gubernatorial and legislative races as well. Golden was bucking that trend, and the only Democratic candidates in the race so far — former Secretary of State Matt Dunlap and former congressional aide Jordan Wood — have started their campaigns from his left.

Will some other candidate jump in, and if so, how will they run their campaign? So far, there aren’t any names being mentioned who have established themselves as centrist voices like Jared Golden. While that may come as a relief to liberals, it could well prove to be a liability in the general.

In the U.S. Senate race, it’s a similar story. Incumbent Susan Collins has been bucking national trends and the Democratic drift of the state for decades. Will she continue to be able to do so, or has that path run its course? She doesn’t just have the advantage of being a moderate; she’s also the incumbent. Maine usually reelects incumbents: no incumbent governor or U.S. senator has lost reelection since Bill Cohen defeated Bill Hathaway in 1978. 

The primary in the U.S. Senate race is also fascinating. Maine generally goes along with the party establishment pick in its primaries; LePage’s 2010 victory was a rare exception. Will Democrats continue with that trend and anoint Janet Mills, or are they more interested in a fresh face? Regardless of which party wins, Maine tends to behave conservatively, but might that be about to change?

This history will have an impact in the gubernatorial race as well, where there are a plethora of candidates in both parties with perhaps more yet to come. Maine has switched parties in the Blaine House every time there’s been a new governor since 1953.

Will that, or any of these trends, hold up, or have Democrats really managed to establish themselves as the natural majority party in the Pine Tree State? That fundamental question will determine how next year — and the future of our state — transpires.