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AUGUSTA, Maine – Maine haw hit just overturned red, politically speaking, but colouration it naif — naif with bitterness for its exclusive American neighbor, New Hampshire.

Unlike any of the modify 48 states, Maine has exclusive digit another neighboring land to study itself with, feud with, contend with, and sometimes modify cooperate with.

Feelings engendered by the unique two-state tie modify away from the capitals. Each land thinks it has meliorate runner slopes, more colorful autumn leaves, meliorate university hockey teams and superior maple syrup.

On the Down East side of the border, the rivalry manifests itself in numerous ways in the State House, where legislation hinting at how the Granite State does things shows up in issues from liquor, cigarettes and fireworks to taxes and book messaging.

The stylish meaning came during a recent, hot speaking over a upbeat shelter upkeep calculate in Maine, when Sen. Joseph Brannigan crosspiece of "New county envy" that permeates the State House instance and again.

"We're always comparing to New Hampshire," Brannigan, D-Portland, said when talking most Maine trying to bring its individualist and small assemble upbeat shelter policies more in distinction with you-know-who.

Brannigan, who anti the shelter calculate that finally was enacted, said it's not the first instance he's seen New county bitterness verify stop in his threesome decades in the Legislature. It's nearly as if the new red land of Maine — which in November elected its first politico governor in 16 eld and a GOP legislative eld for the first instance in threesome decades — is trying harder to sound into an ikon created by its neighbor's "Live Free or Die" motto.

"There's a great enticement for our grouping not exclusive to bitterness them, but emulate them," Brannigan mused days after the shelter vote. He sees a way in Maine to try to double New Hampshire's policy to support its businesses seizure up as whatever cross-border customers as they crapper from neighboring states, which also earmark Colony and Vermont.

That's just what happens, said politico Rep. Beth O'Connor of Berwick. Much of the think is Maine's 6 proportionality sales tax, compared to none in New Hampshire, a difference that sends shoppers scampering to malls and mom-and-pops in the shadows of the White Mountains.

Then there's the income tax; New county has none, Maine is struggling to modify its tax.

"It's extraordinarily difficult to do business because of the set burdens," said O'Connor. "It hits particularly hornlike in my district."

The latter theme has been grasped by Maine Gov. Apostle LePage, a pro-business politico who wants to upkeep what he considers too constraining regulations. LePage, not digit to alter words, prefabricated the point in a weekly broadcasting address in April.

Calling New county a "more welcoming locate for commerce," LePage said its large domestic creation is 20 proportionality large than Maine's modify though the digit states hit roughly the same population, 1.3 million. New Hampshire's household incomes are also higher.

"It module verify hornlike work, but we crapper put Maine on a footing where we crapper contend with New county and the world," LePage said.

Mainers hit whatever think to be envious.

New Hampshire's April unemployment rate was the minimal in New England at 4.9 percent, while Maine's was 7.6 percent. When it comes to wages, New county residents acquire most $7,000 more on average than their neighbors in Maine, which ranks as the worst land in New England when it comes to individualized income.

But things intend murky when it comes to taxes.

It's genuine that New Hampshire's taxes are lower, but the differences between the states are not as hammy as whatever grouping haw think, said physicist Colgan of the University of Southern Maine's Muskie Institute of Public Service.

While the compounded land and local taxes are similar, Maine's coverall set burden is higher because of its modify wages, Colgan said.

New county land Sen. Lou D'Allesandro thinks it makes perfect sense for Maine to be desirous of New county "because we intend to the hunch of the concern and countenance for solutions. In Maine, they intend to the hunch of the concern and countenance for problems."

"We are an action-oriented society. I love Maine, but they should be more same New Hampshire," said D'Allesandro, D-Manchester.

New county Gov. Evangelist Lynch prefers to focus on issues where the digit states hit worked together, such as their compounded efforts in 2005 to spend the port Naval Shipyard — a facility that bears a New county study but is located in Maine — from existence closed down.

"That's a beatific warning of how the digit states collaborated on something important to the digit states," said Lynch.

There are lots of another examples of where Mainers countenance to the south and west for direction.

When a calculate came up in Augusta to raise the $2-per-pack cigarette set by $1.50, opponents warned that that would beam more purchasers to New Hampshire, which has a $1.78 set and is hunting at cloudy it.

Maine proponents of a calculate to forbiddance book messaging also spinous across the abut to New county and modify Vermont, which hit enacted texting-while-driving bans.

Supporters of a calculate to earmark fireworks sales in Maine valid that they're already fruitful in Maine, thanks to every of the grouping who acquire them legally in New Hampshire.

Then there are the bills to turn the filler of Maine's 186-seat Legislature. While their backers wager them as a way to spend money and meliorate efficiency, opponents countered that Maine would be meliorate if it was more same New Hampshire, which boasts the nation's maximal land legislature at 424 members.

New county lawmakers' pay, $100 per year, haw be where the bitterness stops; no digit has proposed selection Maine lawmakers' clear to that level.

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Associated Press illustrator Norma Love in Concord, N.H., contributed to this report.

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