BANGOR (NEWS CENTER Maine) — Ranked-choice voting has the potential to play a pivotal role in the second district congressional race. All of the candidates for Congress say they will use ranked-choice voting except for the incumbent, Rep. Bruce Poliquin.
Democratic candidate Jared Golden says, "I personally am going to use ranked-choice voting. It's the system that Maine voters opted to put in place. It's just a form of election reform."
"It worked well for Maine in the primary election and I look forward to seeing it be used in this general election. We'll be first in the nation." - Jared Golden
Independent candidate Tiffany Bond says "of course" she'll be using ranked-choice voting.
"Regardless of if we like the system, we have the system, and we should be using it to the best of our ability."
Independent candidate Will Hoar agrees. He says he will "definitely" be using ranked-choice voting.
On the use of ranked-choice voting, the incumbent stands apart.
In a recent televised debate, Rep. Bruce Poliquin said he would only cast a vote for himself.
Further, his campaign has refused to say if it will accept results based on the new voting system, calling such talk "hypothetical."
A poll released on October 19 by Pan Atlantic Research of Portland shows Bruce Poliquin and Jared Golden in a virtual tie: 37 percent for Poliquin to 36.5 percent for Golden. Those numbers indicate this tight race is almost guaranteed to be decided by ranked-choice voting.
If no candidate gets more than 50 percent on the first count, second choice votes will determine the winner. The independent candidates are split on who their voters will likely mark as their second choice.
Will Hoar says the majority of his voters "say they'll put Jared Golden second and then Tiffany third...or if they're true independents, then maybe they'll have Tiffany second and Jared in third...I have very few voters who would put Bruce Poliquin second."
Tiffany Bond, on the other hand, says her voters are sharing their ballots with her on social media and "there's a surprising number of people who have voted for Bruce Poliquin as their number two. I know that I pull a lot of folks who trend conservative because, on a lot of issues, I trend conservative."
At this point in the race, it appears Mainers in the second district may have to wait up to a week after Election Day before learning who they're sending to Congress.
As for the Congressional race in district one, in a recent debate, Rep. Chellie Pingree said she will not use ranked-choice voting. Her Republican challenger, Mark Holbrook, also says he won't use it.
Independent State Representative Marty Grohman says he will use it.