These U.S. House elections were conducted with ranked-choice voting, as opposed to a simple plurality, after Maine voters passed a citizen referendum approving the change in 2016[1] and a June 2018 referendum sustaining the change.[2] Ranked-choice voting was used in the primary elections as well.[3]
While Rep. Chellie Pingree in District 1 was reelected with a majority, no candidate received a majority in District 2, which meant that the ranked-choice tabulation needed to occur. Rep. Bruce Poliquin, who received a plurality of first-round votes, filed a federal lawsuit to halt that tabulation, arguing that ranked-choice voting was unconstitutional. The court ruled against Poliquin in his request for a motion on November 15 and against the lawsuit itself on December 13. On November 15, Jared Golden was declared the winner after the ranked-choice redistribution, becoming the first member of Congress to be elected via ranked-choice voting.
Overview
Results of the 2018 United States House of Representatives elections in Maine by district:[4]
Chellie Pingree, the incumbent representative, was first elected in 2008, and in 2016 defeated Republican nominee Mark Holbrook with just under 58 percent of the vote. Holbrook ran again for the Republican nomination, and was unopposed. Independent State Representative Marty Grohman, elected as a Democrat in the 2016 State House election, defected from the party in 2017. He launched his campaign for the first district in spring 2018.
Due to the use of ranked-choice voting in the election, Pingree was considered to be vulnerable if she did not win outright in the first round, as Grohman could have been a second choice for Republican and Democratic voters.[5] Grohman was receiving substantial support from Republican elected officials and activists, including Republican governor Paul LePage[6] and the state director of President Donald Trump's 2016 presidential campaign Christie-Lee McNally.[7]
Bruce Poliquin, the incumbent representative for the second district, defeated Democrat Emily Cain in the 2016 election in a rematch of the 2014 election where Poliquin was first elected. Poliquin ran for the Republican nomination unopposed. Cain did not challenge Poliquin again, instead taking a job with the progressive group Emily's List. Initially, six candidates filed for the Democratic nomination — United States Postal Service employee and activist Phil Cleaves, carpenter and former Maine State Senate candidate Jonathan Fulford, Assistant Majority Leader of the State House of Representatives Jared Golden, shopkeeper and former chair of the Isleboro Board of Selectmen Craig Olson, businessman and former State Senate candidate Tim Rich, and conservationist Lucas St. Clair. Cleaves, Rich and Fulford dropped out at various points in the campaign, though Fulford's withdrawal happened too late for his name to be removed from the primary ballot. Several candidates received prominent endorsements; St. Clair was endorsed by the League of Conservation Voters and California Congressman Jared Huffman, Fulford by the left-wing group Our Revolution prior to his withdrawal from the race, and Golden by VoteVets, Massachusetts Congressman Seth Moulton and over two dozen members of the Maine Legislature. Golden defeated St. Clair and Olson in the second round of the ranked-choice vote tabulation.
In addition, two third-party candidates announced their candidacies for the seat: Houlton Band of Maliseets State Representative Henry John Bear of the Maine Green Independent Party and Brian Kresge of the Libertarian Party. Bear, a former Democrat, left the party due to its stance on water rights for Maine's native people. He failed to qualify for the ballot. Kresge, a veteran and writer, withdrew from the race to run for a seat in the State House of Representatives. Neither the Libertarians nor Green Independents had a candidate on the ballot.
Two independent candidates qualified for the ballot: Tiffany Bond, an attorney from Portland (a city outside of the second district), and Will Hoar, a schoolteacher.
% (gross) = percent of all valid votes cast (without eliminating the exhausted votes)
% (net) = percent of votes cast after eliminating the exhausted votes
All candidates except for Poliquin said they would abide by the results of ranked-choice voting and make second and third choices when they vote. Poliquin said he would only cast a first-round vote for himself, stating that he felt no one but him is qualified for the seat.[53]
Though Poliquin led in the first round of vote tabulation by 2,171 votes, he did not have a majority of the votes, initiating the ranked-choice tabulation process. Poliquin filed a lawsuit in federal court on November 13, seeking an order to halt the second-round tabulation of ballots and declare ranked-choice voting unconstitutional.[54] Poliquin's request for an injunction to halt the ranked-choice voting process was rejected, shortly before Matthew Dunlap, the Maine Secretary of State, announced Golden as the winner by 3,509 votes after votes for independent candidates Tiffany Bond and Will Hoar were eliminated and ballots with these votes had their second- or third-choice votes counted.[55]
Poliquin requested a recount of the ballots just before the deadline of November 26.[56] After several days of counting with the result not being significantly changed, Poliquin ended the recount after incurring $15,000 in fees.[57] Poliquin also stated that his lawsuit would continue[58] and asked Judge Lance Walker, the federal judge hearing his lawsuit, to order a new election be held should he decline to hold ranked-choice voting unconstitutional.[59] Judge Walker ruled against Poliquin on the merits on December 13, rejecting all of his arguments.[60]
Poliquin appealed to the Court of Appeals in Boston and requested an order to prevent Golden from being certified as the winner, but that request was rejected.[57] On December 24, Poliquin dropped his lawsuit, allowing Golden to take the seat.[61][62][63][64] As a result, Poliquin became the first incumbent to lose the 2nd Congressional District since 1916, whereas Golden became the first member of Congress to be elected via ranked-choice voting. This also made New England's delegation to the House entirely Democratic for the first time since 2012.
Gov. Paul LePage, as one of his last acts in office, reluctantly initialed the certificate of election for Golden, adding the words "stolen election" to it to express his personal dislike of ranked-choice voting.[65]
% (gross) = percent of all valid votes cast (without eliminating the exhausted votes)
% (net) = percent of votes cast after eliminating the exhausted votes
Poliquin led on first preferences with 46.4% to Golden's 45.6% and 8.1% for the two independents. However, as no candidate had a majority of the votes, the votes cast for the two independents were redistributed between Poliquin and Golden (those that didn't give a preference for either of the candidates were exhausted) and Golden won the election. The reason both independents were eliminated in a single round, as opposed to only the 4th place candidate, was because of the mathematical impossibility of the 3rd place candidate moving into 2nd place even if they had received all of the 4th place candidate's redistributed votes.
Of the votes left in the count, Golden won with 50.62% of the vote to Poliquin's 49.38%. Including exhausted votes, the final count was Golden 49.2%, Poliquin 48.0%, and 2.8% exhausted.
The votes for the two independents were redistributed as follows: 44.5% went to Golden, 20.3% went to Poliquin, and 35.2% were exhausted votes (i.e., they didn't give a preference to either of the remaining candidates).
^"NRA Endorses Poliquin in the 2nd Congressional District of Maine". NRA-ILA. September 20, 2018. Archived from the original on September 20, 2018. Retrieved September 20, 2018. ...the National Rifle Association Political Victory Fund (NRA-PVF) today endorsed Bruce Poliquin for re-election to the U.S. House of Representatives in the 2nd Congressional District of Maine.
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