With a new poll suggesting that Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-ME) could potentially lose her 2012 Republican primary to a conservative challenger, does the political environment in Maine mean that she could be in real danger from the right, or that she might have to become an independent or even a Democrat?

Snowe's office has not returned out requests for comment. We spoke to Mark Brewer, an associate political science professor at the University of Maine, for the opinion and perspective of a local expert.

"Certainly the numbers among Republicans are a little surprising. It is certainly the case that the Maine Republican Party has a pretty significant faction within it that is relatively conservative, that has for a decent amount of time now looked at Sen. Snowe somewhat skeptically, I guess -- and that's probably being charitable to a certain degree," said Brewer. "So the fact that there's anger within the Maine GOP at Snowe isn't surprising. The fact that the figure among the Republican primary figure, and the fact that there were 59%-31% in favor of a conservative challenge, that surprised me a little bit."

Brewer cautioned, however, that it's a long time between now and 2012, and from the idea of a generic conservative to an actual campaign against someone who is in other regards . "I still think even with these numbers -- and even though I wouldn't want to dismiss them as irrelevant, because I do think they're interesting -- I do think we're still a long way from the possibility of her to lose a primary."

Brewer also said that if Snowe were to skip the Republican primary and run as an independent, she would likely win: "I think that certainly would be an option if she needed to do that, I think she certainly could do that."

"I guess you can't rule anything out, but I don't see any real kind of push for her to switch parties," said Brewer. "I don't think any - maybe there are some conservative activists in the Republican Party who would be pushing for her to switch. But I think if you talked to Republican leaders, they would want to be able to hang on to whatever they have at the moment. And the reality is that Snowe is, on fiscal policies, she's still much more Republican than she is Democratic. Stimulus vote aside, she is still relatively conservative on fiscal issues, her kind of libertarian streak on social issues is nothing new."

We also checked with Maine Secretary of State Matt Dunlap, for some information that could well influence any later decisions: The state election laws. Maine uses a form of a closed primary system. For registered Democrats to vote in the primary, they would have to change their registration at least 15 days before the primary -- a measure designed to prevent parties from interfering in each other's primaries. Registered independents can change their registrations on primary day itself, under the state's same-day registration voting procedures, giving an element of openness to the primary, but the bottom line is still that only a registered Republican, at the moment of being in the booth, can vote in the GOP primary.

Maine also has what is often called a "sore-loser law," which forbids somebody from pulling a Joe Lieberman -- that is running in a primary, losing that primary, and then being put on the ballot as an independent candidate for the general election. That very factor contributed in part to Sen. Arlen Specter's switch from the Republicans to the Democrats -- and who knows, it might become relevant in Maine, if these poll numbers keep up.