Many of Maine’s Tuesday primaries hinge on subtle ranked-choice voting shifts that could dramatically alter the outcomes, particularly in the five-way Democratic gubernatorial race.
That unique election system is set to add drama to the nominating races. Only the first-round results will be reported on election night, and any race with no candidate getting more than 50% of votes will go to a ranked-choice count next week in Augusta.
This looks likely to happen in all of Maine’s attention-grabbing races on Tuesday, aside from the Democratic U.S. Senate primary that will likely be won by Graham Platner. The most uncertain one is the Democratic governor’s race, where candidates are bunched close enough together that small swings in first-round support could produce different final matchups and winners.
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A SurveyUSA poll released last week by the electoral reform group FairVote and the Bangor Daily News shows former state CDC Director Nirav Shah leading with 25% of first-choice support, followed by former state Sen. Troy Jackson at 20%, former House Speaker Hannah Pingree at 19%, renewable energy executive Angus King III at 14% and Secretary of State Shenna Bellows at 11%.
Those numbers virtually guarantee a ranked-choice count. But the poll’s own simulation and a BDN analysis of the preference flows suggests the race is more wide open than the first-round numbers imply. We made a tool allowing you to set the first-round totals and simulate 10,000 races. Polling errors lead the races to get more uncertain as the race is played out.
For example, Pingree had a narrow lead against Shah in our survey’s ranked-choice voting simulation. Yet his first-round lead gives him a slightly higher chance of winning as we see it now. The key dynamic is that Pingree and Jackson are separated by a percentage point.
In roughly half of plausible scenarios, Shah and Pingree survive to the final round as others are eliminated. The other half is somewhat of a grab bag. While Pingree would get a big bump from Bellows supporters, we saw Jackson pick up significant support from King voters.
Although Bellows was in fifth place, she has a path if she does better than that tonight. She is the second choice of a large share of Jackson voters. If he is eliminated early due to a polling miss, she could accumulate enough transfers to reach the final round. King has less of a chance because correlated candidates — Shah and Pingree — are almost never eliminated before him.
On the Republican side, the race is somewhat cleaner. Lawyer Bobby Charles led with 34% of first-round support, double his nearest rival, Jonathan Bush, at 17%. The ranked-choice simulation gives Charles a dominant position, though it’s short of the 98% chance he has on Kalshi.
The main variable here is whether Bush, former state Senate Majority Leader Garrett Mason, or businessman Ben Midgley emerges as the runner-up. If one of them can knock Charles down and get deep into the 20s, this could be a real race. That requires a huge polling miss.
In Maine’s 2nd Congressional District, state Sen. Joe Baldacci leads Democrats with 27%, followed closely by state Auditor Matthew Dunlap at 22% and former congressional aide Jordan Wood at 21%. Wood and Dunlap have been close enough that either could emerge from the ranked-choice count as Baldacci’s final opponent.
Election night will offer only partial answers. For voters trying to make sense of it Tuesday, the first returns are just the beginning of the story.