Eliot is quoted in a new The Lincoln County News article which notes that in Maine, unrolled voters — voters who have not declared an affiliation for any one party — are the single largest voting bloc in the state, accounting for 37 percent of all registered voters.

Below is an excerpt from the article ‘Unenrolled Voters Trump Parties’ in Maine:

Eliot Cutler is one candidate betting no one votes by party.

Cutler entered the 2010 gubernatorial race in August 2009 as an unenrolled, independent candidate and knows well the state’s predisposition for electing independent-minded politicians.

Angus King, Maine’s last independent governor, won election with 35 percent of the vote in 1994 and four years later stormed re-election with 64.7 percent of the statewide vote.

Those numbers are not lost on Cutler, who, like King, is largely financing his own campaign.

“I’m running as an independent because I am one,” Cutler said.

Cutler, whose political background includes working on the presidential campaign of Sen. Edmund Muskie and for President Carter, left the Democratic Party after growing dissatisfied with Gov. Baldacci’s policies in 2005.

“At heart I am a reformer and have been all my life,” Cutler said of his decision to run without party affiliation.

Leaving a party and running for governor “reflects a deep concern for the state and for the circumstances we are in,” Cutler said, “And my firm conviction that neither party – nor any candidate from those parties – is likely to undertake reform and changes we need.”

Cutler believes party representatives are “bound by relationships put in place over long periods of time that will be difficult for registered party faithfuls to break.”

Running as an unenrolled candidate is the only way to shake free of political stigma and preconceived responsibilities, he said.

“You can’t be a genuine reformer without being independent of the two parties,” Cutler said.

“Maine people today are frustrated and angry and have lousy confidence in the political system and political parties,” Cutler said. “They hear what amounts to drivel. Maine people are smart and they are pragmatic and they don’t think either party is offering new ideas or a willingness to break with the past.”

While campaigning, Cutler says he is often asked if he is Democrat, or if he is a Republican. When he stretches out his hand and says he’s Independent, enough people answer, ‘I’m with you’ to indicate to Cutler Maine’s unenrolled voters aren’t likely to join party politics in the near future – gubernatorial election or not.

You can read the original article in its entirety here.