AUGUSTA (NEWS CENTER Maine) — After more than a week, the Democratic Party has its nominee for the 2nd Congressional District. The secretary of state's office announced Wednesday, eight days after election night, that Jared Golden had won the Democratic nomination.
After one round of ranked-choice tabulation, the state representative from Lewiston unofficially received more than 54 percent of the vote, less than 9 percent more than runner-up Lucas St. Clair, who got nearly 46 percent of the vote.
Golden will take on incumbent Republican U.S. Rep. Bruce Poliquin in November for the seat representing Maine's 2nd District on Capitol Hill.
Related: 2018 Maine Primary Election Results
State officials worked more than a week after the primary to gather and count the ballots from all of Maine municipalities, tabulating the results using ranked-choice voting (RCV), a method being used for the first time nationwide in congressional and statewide races.
Officials spent Tuesday retrieving ballots from a handful of towns because the scanned sheets were illegible and verifying all of the results.
Voters approved RCV by referendum in 2016.