To no one’s surprise, freshman Democratic Rep. Jared Golden confirmed Monday that he would seek re-election to Maine’s 2nd Congressional District rather than challenge GOP Sen. Susan Collins. Republicans haven’t landed a credible candidate yet for this northern Maine seat, which swung from 52-43 Obama to 51-41 Trump, but one old foe sounds like he’s hungering for another shot.
Last year, Maine became the first state to implement an instant-runoff voting (IRV) law, and Golden unseated GOP Rep. Bruce Poliquin 50.6-49.4 margin once votes were assigned to subsequent preferences as minor candidates were eliminated. Poliquin, who took a slim plurality among first-preference votes, spent a full seven weeks waging a frivolous legal battle to try and keep his seat by getting IRV struck down. Poliquin finally conceded defeat, but that didn’t at all stop him from gripping about the election system. Poliquin’s political adviser said at the time he had “nothing to report" about the defeated congressman's plans for 2020, and while Poliquin still doesn’t seem to have said anything about a rematch, he sounds like he badly wants one.
In late April, Poliquin spoke to the New England Political Science Association and as one attendant told the Bangor Daily News’ Amy Fried, the former congressman “seem[ed] very angry.” Poliquin insisted, “We won in 2018,” and his defeat was illegitimate because, “We have this thing called ranked voting” that he called “the biggest scam I’ve ever seen in my whole life.”
Poliquin, whom Fried said used the word “scam” several more times in his talk, also argued that the law violated the constitutional principle of one-person, one-vote, an argument that was rejected in federal court during Poliquin’s unsuccessful lawsuit last year. If Poliquin cared that Maine voters had twice voted in favor of IVR, including months before his defeat, he didn’t show it.
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