McKernan has characterized his narrow victory as something of a comeback, considering that pollsters showed him 12 points behind Brennan only two months prior. Momentum began to change only in mid-October, McKernan said, when his campaign was able to effectively communicate "not only what we had accomplished but also what was at stake in this election." Brennan said that he saw no fatal flaws in his campaign, but added he was hurt by the long federal budget debate that kept him in Washington when he needed to be campaigning in Maine. "It hurts the dynamic of the campaign when you can't be here," he explained.