Good morning from Augusta. We really don’t want you to ask us to predict Maine’s first ranked-choice voting primaries, but we’re going to learn a lot about how voters are using the new voting system by day’s end.
This is one of the most uncertain Maine elections that we’ve covered. Primaries in Maine are always a crapshoot. They’re even more of one today, when voters will christen the first statewide ranked-choice voting system in U.S. history.
There was only one public poll of the Republican and Democratic primaries in the race to replace the term-limited Gov. Paul LePage in early May published by the Bangor Daily News. It showed businessman Shawn Moody ahead among the four-way Republican field and Attorney General Janet Mills ahead in the seven-person Democratic field.
Results of that poll are next to useless today because that was before campaigns launched television ads, but Moody and Mills have remained the top targets of their rivals so far. If Moody is going to be beaten, it’s probably going to be by former Health and Human Services Commissioner Mary Mayhew or Senate Majority Leader Garrett Mason.
The County is pleased to feature content from our sister company, Bangor Daily News. To read the rest of “Happy Election Day! Maine is making history in a way that increases uncertainty,” an article by contributing Bangor Daily News staff writer Michael Shepherd, please follow this link to the BDN online.
