I think Maine may be lost to the GOP for a long time, particularly since the ‘Rats introduced ranked choice voting (RCV). With RCV, the voter selects a first choice and a second choice from among the candidates on the ballot. This encourages minor party candidates and independent candidates to run. After the votes are cast, the state determines the first choice vote counts for each candidate. Then, they do a second count which includes the “second choice”. The candidate with the lowest vote total is eliminated. If no candidate has 50% + 1, they do a third count of the first and second choices of the remaining candidates. They keep going until they get someone who has 50% + 1, who is declared the victor.
In the 2018 congressional election for Maine CD-2, the former incumbent, Bruce Poliquin, got 48% of the first choice votes; the ‘Rat challenger, Jared Golden, was 2,000 votes or so behind in second place. There was an independent in the race, and it turned out that 90% of the second choice votes of his voters were for Golden, so Golden ended up being declared the winner.
Susan Collins is supposedly at 41-43%, depending on who you believe. In addition to the openly lesbian ‘Rat Sarah Gideon, you have an independent candidate who was once in the Green Party, and then a perennial candidate who supposedly is conservative. The Green independent supposedly has polled 8-10%. I don’t think you’ll see too many of her voters choosing Susan as their second choice candidate. So even if Susan was ahead after all the first choice votes were counted, if she is only at 48% she loses.
After the 2014 election, the Republicans held the governor’s office and the state senate. Now, they are shut out of power; they trail in the state House with 57 members out of 151, and only 14 out of 35 members in the Senate.
Maine appears to be a lost cause for the foreseeable future.
If the GOP wants to make a breakthrough in New England, they ought to invest some money into Rhode Island as well as in New Hampshire.
Maine had the most conservative governor in the country with Paul LePage, elected in 2010 and 2014.
He will run again in 2022. He was term limited in 2018.
Rank choice voting does not apply to state offices in Maine, because Maine’s constitution mentions a plurality and the federal constitution does not.
I never heard of Gideon being a lesbian before.....she has a husband and three kids. She’s a 100% moonbat, that’s for sure.