Republican nominee former President Donald Trump at an event Aug. 15 in Bedminster, N.J., left, and Democratic nominee Vice President Kamala Harris at an event Aug. 16 in Raleigh, N.C. Associated Press photos

With less than two months to go before Election Day, political experts and pollsters are closely watching states such as Pennsylvania and Georgia as battlegrounds that could decide the outcome of the presidential election.

But there is one possible scenario in which Maine also plays a key role.

More specifically, it’s the voters in the vast, rural 2nd Congressional District that stretches across western, central, northern and Down East Maine who may help pick the next U.S. president.

Here’s how it would work.

Presidents are elected not by national popular vote but by the Electoral College, which apportions votes based on population. There are 538 total electoral votes, and 270 are needed to win.

Based on recent history and current polling, there are 19 states that appear safe for the Democratic ticket, Vice President Kamala Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz. Those states control 225 electoral votes.

By contrast, there are 24 states that are reliably Republican and likely to deliver for former President Donald Trump and his running mate, Sen. JD Vance of Ohio. That’s 219 electoral votes.

The remaining seven states – Arizona, Nevada, Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Georgia – have 93 collective electoral votes up for grabs.

Harris is leading in the Midwest states of Wisconsin and Michigan, so those are likely in her corner. There is also a decent chance she can win the Western states of Nevada and Arizona. If those states also go Harris’ way, it would put her total at 267 votes.

Trump, on the other hand, has a slight edge in North Carolina, and if he carries that state along with Georgia and Pennsylvania, he would get to 269 votes, just shy of the total needed for victory.

But there are still two electoral votes unaccounted for, and this is where Maine comes in.

Maine is one of only two states – Nebraska is the other – that apportion electoral votes by congressional district. Each of Maine’s two congressional districts is worth one vote, and the state as a whole is worth another two. Nebraska has three congressional districts, each worth one electoral vote, and the state’s overall winner gets two votes.

Nebraska is a solidly red state, but its 2nd Congressional District – made up mostly of the state’s biggest city, Omaha – leans Democratic. So that one vote is likely to go to Harris/Walz.

Maine, by contrast, is mostly a Democratic state, but its 2nd District has become far more conservative.

Democrats (Hillary Clinton in 2016 and Joe Biden in 2020) won the state and the 1st Congressional District, but in each election, Trump carried the 2nd District and its lone electoral vote.

So, if Trump can hold the triumvirate of Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Georgia, that one vote in Maine’s 2nd District could conceivably be the deciding factor in whether he returns to the White House.

The scenario has been explored by political analysts at CNN and The Washington Post just in the last week.

But while possible, the path through Maine is not widely seen as very likely – at least right now.

David Wasserman, an analyst with Cook Political Report, said although Maine has gotten some attention, he doesn’t think its lone vote in the 2nd District will be the decider.

“States don’t behave independently of each other,” he said. “So if Trump is winning Pennsylvania and Georgia, odds are he’s winning North Carolina, too, and other states that are demographically quite similar.”

Both analysts and the presidential campaigns are closely watching state-by-state polling to identify key battlegrounds. Campaigns will move money and staff from state to state as the election draws closer and the pathways to victory become clearer.

There hasn’t been much polling in Maine this election cycle, so it’s hard to know what the mood is here. And there has been a sizable population increase here since 2020, although most of those new voters live in the 1st Congressional District.

The University of New Hampshire Survey Center polled 821 Mainers between Aug. 15-19. Harris held a 55-38 advantage statewide and a 49-44 edge in the 2nd District, which was a surprise.

Andrew Smith, a political scientist at UNH who directs the Survey Center, also said he doesn’t think the “Maine scenario” is that likely at the moment.

“You could certainly put together some collection of states where it happens, but historically that has not been the case,” he said.

The closest presidential election – in terms of Electoral College math – was in 2000, when President George W. Bush defeated Al Gore, 271-266, after the Supreme Court stepped in to settle a contentious recount in Florida.

Smith said there is a strong argument that New Hampshire decided that election. It was the only Northeastern state to vote Republican that year, but if its four electoral votes went to Gore, Florida wouldn’t have mattered.

In 2016, Trump spent a good bit of time campaigning in Maine. He even talked about how he viewed the state in his electoral chances.

“I went to Maine four times,” he said in an interview with The New York Times after the election. “I went to Maine (2nd District) for one, because everybody was saying, ‘You can get to 269, but there is no path to 270.’ We learned that was false because we ended up with, what, three-something (electoral votes).” Trump collected 306 Electoral College votes in 2016.

Trump has not campaigned in Maine yet this year, and neither have any big-name surrogates.

It could be that Trump sees the 2nd District as a lock. His margin in 2016 was 10 points, although that shrunk to seven in 2020.

Interestingly, there is also a plausible scenario in which Harris reaches exactly 270 electoral votes, but only with the help of that one vote from Nebraska’s 2nd District.

If she wins Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin and Trump holds North Carolina, Georgia, Arizona and Nevada, that lone vote in Nebraska would be the difference.

Dan Shea, professor of government at Colby College, said Republicans could look to shore up support in Maine’s 2nd District over the next two months while Democrats put resources into Nebraska’s 2nd.

“There is no question those are the two swing single districts,” he said. “They could be very important.”

Marc Short, former chief of staff to Vice President Mike Pence, is visiting Colby College next week and was asked about the importance of Maine’s 2nd District.

“Our nation is more polarized than in recent years, so I think it is pretty evenly divided, and (the election) will be decided by a couple of states,” he told a Portland Press Herald/Maine Sunday Telegram reporter. “I don’t want to try to handicap whether it comes down to the one seat in Maine or the one seat in Nebraska. But I do think it is reality that our national elections are now fought in a handful of states, and it makes each and every one of those (Electoral College votes) more important, including Maine’s district.”

This spring, Trump and Republican allies sought to change Nebraska’s law to make the state winner-take-all. That effort failed.

However, while that debate was happening in Nebraska, some top Democrats in Maine warned that if Nebraska were going to make a change to effectively shift that one electoral vote from Democrats to Republicans, Maine might make a similar change here, which would offset any impact. Maine’s Legislature is controlled by Democrats.

“If Nebraska’s Republican governor and Republican-controlled Legislature were to change their electoral system this late in the cycle in order to unfairly award Donald Trump an additional electoral vote, I think the Maine Legislature would be compelled to act in order to restore fairness to our country’s electoral system,” House Majority Leader Maureen Terry, a Gorham Democrat, said at the time.

There is also a chance – albeit a long shot – that future elections may not rely as heavily on the electoral vote.

A group of states have joined what’s called the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, which pledges that all of its electoral votes will be awarded to whichever presidential candidate wins the popular vote nationwide, rather than the candidate who won the vote in just that state. Maine joined the compact this spring.

The compact will only be activated after enough states join to control 270 Electoral College votes, the minimum number needed to win the presidency. According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, 16 states and the District of Columbia have enacted national popular vote laws and have committed 205 electoral votes so far.

Staff writers Rachel Ohm and Randy Billings contributed to this story.