A strong bipartisan majority of Maine residents supports a more aggressive approach to federal housing subsidies, tax breaks and regulation, a new poll found.

And a majority of those polled in Maine’s rural 2nd Congressional District, one of the two dozen political battlegrounds targeted by the poll, supported huge federal spending to ease skyrocketing housing costs — a sign that housing could prove to be a pivotal policy area in this year’s midterm elections.

The poll, conducted in May and June by the University of Maryland’s Program for Public Consultation, asked 800 Maine residents if they support five proposals, all of which have been discussed by Congress:

• Allocating $40 billion to build more high-density affordable housing for low-income residents;
• Giving $25 billion to local governments for more high-density affordable housing for low- and middle-income households;
• Spending $24 billion on new housing vouchers for those with very low income, or who are disabled or elderly;
• Banning corporations from buying any new single-family homes, and requiring those companies to sell their housing assets within the next decade; and
• Consistent with the law passed overwhelmingly by Congress last month, providing tax breaks to builders who construct or repair homes that are affordable to low- or middle-income households.

Each proposal had the overall support of more than two-thirds of those surveyed. That reflects national trends; Mainers supported the policies about as much as their national counterparts.

More than 80% of Democrats surveyed across the state and in the 2nd District supported each policy.

Republicans showed less enthusiasm — especially on spending $40 billion to increase housing supply — but still, a solid majority supported each proposal. In fact, a higher proportion of Maine Republicans supported each proposal than the share of national Republicans.

Michaela Brewster, an immigrant from Austria who was polled on the policies, said she’s felt the housing crunch herself while living in Maine. She said housing was cheaper in her hometown, Vienna, than where she now lives in Livermore Falls.

She supports investments in building more affordable housing and would support money for builders, as long as the funding is easily traceable and developers are held accountable to tight timelines.

But banning corporations from buying homes, she said, is bad policy. The new federal housing law prevents corporate landlords with more than 350 properties from buying more — it doesn’t ban private equity firms from buying homes altogether.

“People should be able to sell their homes to whomever they want,” Brewster said. “If there were more buyers available, they would prefer to sell to a family or a single person. If there is nobody else available, I’m thankful that a corporation wants to come and buy it so I can move out.”

The survey was a part of the Program for Public Consultation’s “Common Ground in the Battlegrounds?” study in 11 politically competitive states nationwide. Researchers focused on 28 dead-heat congressional districts, including Maine’s 2nd District — which voted for President Donald Trump three times while being represented by Democratic Rep. Jared Golden since 2019.

More policy areas were polled in addition to housing, and the results will be released over the coming weeks.

The idea, said Steven Kull, director of the Program for Public Consultation, is to highlight policy areas where Congress would see wide levels of public support — if only lawmakers could agree to act.

“Republicans and Democrats bond differently to different candidates and themes, but when it gets down to individual policies, they tend to be pragmatic,” Kull said. “Americans are finding more common ground than Congress.”

The polled policies were pulled from real 2023 proposals. Former President Joe Biden’s initial 2023 budget included the $25 billion for local governments, while bills introduced by congressional Democrats that year contained the funding for vouchers and more affordable housing. A third bill proposed banning corporations from buying up single-family housing.

None of those proposals passed. Two of the bills never had hearings.

The fifth polled policy, providing tax breaks for housing builders, was included in the new federal law — the 21st Century Road to Housing Act, which had strong bipartisan support and became law without Trump’s signature.

With Congress passing fewer laws in this term than in the past half century, finding productive middle ground is as important as ever, Kull said.

“If Congress would actually listen to their constituents, they would find more common ground,” he said.