Maine Democrat flips U.S. House seat

Test of ranked-choice voting system used in House, Senate races

AUGUSTA, Maine — A Democrat who trailed a Republican incumbent in a costly U.S. House race in Maine came from behind to emerge as the victor Thursday following extra rounds of tabulations under the state’s new voting system, officials said.

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 rankedchoice 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.

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 best leaders were the ones who didn’t worry about who got credit for getting the job done,” he said. “Imagine what Congress could do if we had more leaders like that in Washington?” he added.

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.

In this case, 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 who trailed, collectively gathering about 8 percent of first-place votes. A computer algorithm reallocated the second-place votes, giving Golden a lead of nearly 3,000 votes.

The legal challenge by Poliquin and three GOP activists served as the backdrop for the dramatic finale of a hard-fought battle that became the most expensive congressional race in state history.

Poliquin’s spokesman vowed Thursday to continue the lawsuit that contends the voting system violates the U.S. Constitution. The lawsuit remains alive even though U.S. District Judge Lance Walker declined Poliquin’s request to stop tabulations.