AUGUSTA — Former President Bill Clinton will return to Maine just days before the election to stump for Democratic gubernatorial candidate Libby Mitchell, the Mitchell campaign announced Friday.

Clinton will appear at a free “get-out-the-vote” event at the Lewiston Armory at 10 a.m. Oct. 31.

He was last in Maine in September, at a free rally in South Portland that was attended by 1,500 supporters. He endorsed Mitchell in March; the two have a relationship dating back to the Clinton presidency.

As president, Clinton appointed Mitchell to be the first female head of the Federal Home Loan Bank of Boston. In 2008, when Hillary Clinton ran for president, Mitchell and Bill Clinton campaigned for her in Portland. And this year, before the June primaries, Bill Clinton sent out a fundraising appeal for Mitchell.

Recent polls show Mitchell trailing Republican Paul LePage. The most recent MaineToday Media poll, conducted by Critical Insights, showed LePage at 32 percent, Mitchell at 26 percent and independent Eliot Cutler at 11 percent.

On Thursday, Critical Insights released a separate poll that put LePage at 32 percent, Mitchell at 20 percent and Cutler at 19 percent. Independent Shawn Moody had 5 percent, independent Kevin Scott had 1 percent, and 21 percent were undecided.

In a letter to supporters, Mitchell said Clinton “presided over one of the longest economic expansions in our nation’s history.”

“It is great to have him back in Maine to help make the case to undecided voters and to energize our supporters in the final few days,” Mitchell said in a prepared statement.

Tickets to the event are available at http://mainedems.org/clinton.

 

MaineToday Media State House Writer Susan Cover can be contacted at 620-7015 or at: scover@mainetoday.com