Democrat flips House seat in Maine ranked balloting

A Democrat who trailed a Republican incumbent in a costly U.S. House race came from behind to emerge as the victor Thursday following extra rounds of tabulations under Maine’s new voting system that’s facing a legal challenge.

Election officials declared Jared Golden the winner, flipping the seat held by two-term Rep. Bruce Poliquin, after a federal judge declined to halt tabulations in the state’s ranked-choice voting system used in last week’s election. It was the first time an incumbent has lost that seat in more than 100 years.

The outcome was a dramatic reversal in the nation’s only test of the ranked-choice voting system used for the first time in U.S. House and Senate races. Golden’s election further strengthens a majority for Democrats who swept into power in the House. His election leaves Sen. Susan Collins, of Maine, the lone Republican member of Congress in New England.

Golden, a Marine Corps veteran, declared himself the “majority consensus winner” and told reporters he wants to bring to Washington, D.C., the type of leadership he saw in the Marines.

The ranked-choice system, approved in 2016, lets voters rank all candidates from first to last on the ballot. If no one gets a majority, then last-place candidates are eliminated and their second-place votes are reallocated.

Poliquin and Golden both collected 46 percent of first-place votes, with Poliquin maintaining a slim edge of about 2,000 votes. But additional tabulations were triggered because no one collected a majority. On Thursday, Golden overtook Poliquin after state election officials eliminated two independent candidates.

A computer algorithm reallocated the secondplace votes, giving Golden a lead of nearly 3,000 votes.

California: Democrat Katie Porter has seized a Republican-held U.S. House seat in the heart of Southern California’s Reagan country.

Thursday’s vote count update in Orange County gave Porter, a law professor, the upset over Republican Rep. Mimi Walters in the 45th District. Porter has 51 percent and leads by 6,203 votes.

Democrats now have won five GOP seats in California, and Republicans are being threatened in another race that still is too close to call.