I figured she could word her resignation to take effect contemporaneously with being sworn in as Governor, I thought that’s what Frank Murkowski did. I didn’t know (or more likely did and forgot) they changed the law to bar Knowles from replacing him.
Why not LePage as the Senate appointee? He doesn’t want to take on Holstein Queen but he might be interested in an open seat. Do you think Poliquin is that stronger a candidate?
I do think that Poliquin, as a two-year Senate incumbent (which would increase his name ID in the half of the state that he does not represent currently), would be a stronger GE candidate than would LePage, particularly in a presidential-election year. However, I believe that LePage would be a stronger candidate against Angus Burger Queen in 2018 than would Poliquin because (i) LePage has far higher name ID and (ii) the mid-term electorate shopuldn;t be as much of a problem for LePage as would the presidential-election electorate.
More importantly, I would be shocked if Susan Collins would agree to appoint Paul LePage to the U.S. Senate, and it would take a Collins appointment for LePage to replace Collins in the Senate. LePage would not be able to appoint himself to the Senate (or, to put it another way, it would be legally and constitutionally questionable if he did so, and the Senate might refuse to seat him), so LePage first would have to resign so that the President of the Senate becomes governor and appoints him, which would be risky, messy, and not conducive to helping our chances to holding the seat in 2020.
So my preference would be for LePage to run for the Senate in 2018, and for LePage and Collins to agree to appoint Poliquin to the Senate should Collins win the governorship.