Jared Golden: I Miss The Class Photo!

Former Marine vet Jared Golden secures a spot in the House of Representatives. He will be one of the many Democrats who blew out Republicans in the Midterms.

Welcome to Congress Jared Golden.

The 2nd Congressional District was occupied by Rep. Bruce Poliquin (R-ME).

Polishing was the last Republican House member left in New England. He was defeated the Democratic challenger who is a former Marine vet.

This leaves Sen. Susan Collins of Maine as the sole Republican left in New England. She is considered a targeted candidate in 2020. Collins was the deciding factor in the confirmation of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh.

Poliquin was a supporter of the Jobs and Tax Cuts Act. He also supported off shore drilling. He didn't care about Maine's needs. His district covers Bangor, Houlton, Estcourt Station, Fort Kent, Presque Isle, Lewiston and the town of Paris.

Golden won on Maine's rank-choice law. The rules mean that if the candidates failed to win over 50% of the vote, they go into a secondary tabulation vote.

It's the first time in the nation's history a federal race has been decided by ranked-choice voting.
Golden won 50.5% to Poliquin's 49.5%, Maine Secretary of State Matthew Dunlap told reporters Thursday afternoon. The flip means Democrats have picked up 33 House seats so far in 2018, with seven races still undecided. Democrats lead in five of those seven seats, all of which are Republican-held districts.

So far, the current balance of power in Washington come January will be 228 Democrats and 200 Republicans in the House.

The tabulation came hours after a judge denied Poliquin's request for a temporary restraining order. The Republican had called into question the constitutionality of the ranked-choice voting process, which Maine's voters approved in a 2016 referendum and used for the first time this year.

In Maine's system, voters rank their choices from first to last. If no candidate gets more than 50% of the first-place votes, then candidates are eliminated one by one -- making the second-place choices of voters who back little-known third-party or independent candidates crucial.

Poliquin narrowly led Golden, 46.2% to 45.6%, after first-place votes were counted. But more than 8% of Maine's voters backed one of the two independent candidates in the race, Tiffany Bond and Will Hoar.

Rep. Bruce Poliquin (R-ME) won't concede. He will spend his worth trying to prevent Golden from being seated.

Dunlap's office calculated the ranked-choice voting results Thursday afternoon, broadcasting their Microsoft Excel tabulation on Facebook Live.

Poliquin didn't concede after the results were announced, instead saying he will continue his legal challenge of the constitutionality of Maine's ranked-choice voting system.

"It is now officially clear I won the constitutional 'one-person, one-vote' first choice election on Election Day that has been used in Maine for more than one hundred years. We will proceed with our constitutional concerns about the rank vote algorithm," Poliquin said in a statement.

It seems like this would be the 35th Congressional district flipped. The Republicans pretty much lost New England. It leaves only Collins and she is vulnerable in 2020.