Ranked-choice count confirms Jared Golden’s win over Austin Theriault
By Michael Shepherd, Bangor Daily News Staff
U.S. Rep. Jared Golden’s victory over state Rep. Austin Theriault in Maine’s 2nd District was confirmed on Friday after a ranked-choice voting count that stretched into a fourth day.
The Democratic incumbent won a fourth term by the slimmest margin in modern Maine political history over his Republican challenger. Golden got 50.35 percent of votes to 49.65 percent for Theriault, a first-term legislator and former NASCAR driver from Fort Kent who has asked for a recount.
The ranked-choice count was an oddity. The Bangor Daily News and Decision Desk HQ declared Golden the winner on the day after Election Day when military and overseas ballots broke heavily for the incumbent. Yet a relatively large share of blank ballots kept Golden below the 50 percent threshold needed to win outright under Maine’s system.
So the count examined the second choices of roughly 13,000 voters who either left their first choice blank or cast their first-round votes for write-in candidate Diana Merenda of Surry. Only 1 in 10 of those voters ranked either Golden or Theriault. That small remaining pool of voters broke overwhelmingly for Golden, pushing him over the majority threshold.
The race between was the most expensive U.S. House race in Maine history, with outside groups spending $25 million to influence the election. Golden survived despite an aggressive campaign from Theriault that looked to tie the centrist congressman to national Democrats and burnished the challenger’s endorsement from President-elect Donald Trump.
In the end, Golden eked out a 2,700-vote victory despite Trump taking the conservative-leaning 2nd District by 9 percentage points, indicating a large share of split-ticket voters that have been observed in his past elections and the 2020 election won by U.S. Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine. Republicans held their narrow House majority despite Golden’s victory.
Theriault’s campaign made good on plans to ask for a recount following the ranked-choice tally. It is highly unlikely that any recount would overturn the result. In 36 recounts of statewide elections between 2000 and 2023 reviewed by FairVote, margins only shifted by 0.03 percent on average, and gaps typically widened between candidates.
Shawn Roderick, the challenger’s campaign manager, noted that there were several small corrections to tallies in certain towns during the ranked-choice count. He said the Theriault campaign particularly wants to examine ballots in Presque Isle, where the candidate underperformed other Republicans on the ballot.
“We’re very proud of the campaign we ran, proud of the grassroots supporters that we had,” Roderick said. “We owe it to them and owe it to Rep. Theriault to have this race recounted.”
Golden’s campaign issued a statement saying that the congressman has returned to work and signaled doubt that a recount would change the result.
“[Theriault] is within his rights to force a third accounting of ballots with a taxpayer-funded recount, but the votes have been counted twice now and my lead has been in the thousands of votes both times,” a Golden spokesperson said in a statement.