{"id":915183,"date":"2026-11-12T20:58:10","date_gmt":"2026-11-12T20:58:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/915183\/"},"modified":"2026-11-12T20:58:10","modified_gmt":"2026-11-12T20:58:10","slug":"paul-lepage-wins-maines-cd2-race-after-ranked-choice-tabulation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/915183\/","title":{"rendered":"Paul LePage wins Maine’s CD2 race after ranked-choice tabulation"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Republican former governor has been in Washington for new member orientation as his Democratic opponent, State Auditor Matt Dunlap, conceded the race last week<\/p>\n

\"RussAUGUSTA, Maine \u2014<\/p>\n

Former Gov. Paul LePage has won the election for Maine’s 2nd Congressional District seat in the U.S. House of Representatives following a ranked-choice voting tabulation.<\/p>\n

The Maine Secretary of State’s Office ran the tabulation of 341,526 ballots on Thursday and announced the results live on YouTube<\/a>. <\/p>\n

When the blanks ballots were eliminated during the first round, LePage had 50.63% of the vote. The Republican candidate then went up to 50.81% when the second-choice votes were allocated, while State Auditor Matt Dunlap, the Democratic candidate, finished with 49.18%.<\/p>\n

LePage has been in Washington<\/a> throughout the week for new member orientation because Dunlap conceded the race last week<\/a>. Secretary of State Shenna Bellows said that even though Dunlap conceded, the ranked-choice tabulation still had to be completed in order to have a certified election under state law.<\/p>\n

The tabulation, which took three days to complete, was conducted at the Maine Department of Public Safety Headquarters, which is located at 45 Commerce Drive in Augusta. The process was open to the public and livestreamed on the Secretary of State’s YouTube page<\/a> on Monday, Tuesday and Thursday. The Secretary of State’s Office staff took Wednesday off in observance of Veterans Day.<\/p>\n

In ranked-choice voting races, like the race for CD2, a candidate must receive more than 50% of first-choice votes as counted on Election Day in order to win the race outright. On Nov. 5, two days after Election Day, the Secretary of State’s Office announced that LePage had 49.894% of the vote while Dunlap had 48.307%. The lone declared write-in candidate in the race, independent Gregory Ward, received 0.036% of the vote while there were 6,017 blank ballots (1.763%). Since no candidate received more than 50% of the total ballots case, the Secretary of State’s Office determined the race would proceed to a ranked-choice voting tabulation. <\/p>\n

The Secretary of State’s Office said the results are unofficial until the official tabulation of the votes cast is communicated to Gov. Janet Mills.<\/p>\n

How the tabulation works<\/p>\n

The first step in the ranked-choice tabulation process is to verify the vote totals from every municipality to ensure accuracy. Then, the votes are tabulated in rounds, with the lowest-ranked candidate eliminated in each round until there are only two candidates remaining. The candidate determined to have received the majority of the votes \u2014 more than 50% \u2014 in the final round is declared the winner.<\/p>\n

More info about CD2<\/p>\n

At more than 27,000 square miles, Maine’s 2nd Congressional District is the largest congressional district by area east of the Mississippi River. CD2 includes all of Androscoggin, Aroostook, Franklin, Hancock, Oxford, Penobscot, Piscataquis, Somerset, Waldo and Washington counties, as well as the Kennebec County communities of Augusta, Belgrade, Chelsea, Farmingdale, Fayette, Gardiner, Hallowell, Manchester, Monmouth, Mount Vernon, Oakland, Randolph, Readfield, Rome, Sidney, Vienna, Wayne and Winthrop.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Republican former governor has been in Washington for new member orientation as his Democratic opponent, State Auditor…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":915184,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[132189,26183,382352,28358,4,450,5015,382350,275,382343,451,382351,10482,382344,330050,14971,382345,62113,3,16178,382347,382346,111,382348,382349,16907,13109,16597,452,453,291511,19043,14972,382353,9280],"class_list":["post-915183","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-breaking-news","tag-2026-election","tag-2nd-congressional-district","tag-2nd-congressional-district-seat","tag-augusta","tag-breaking-news","tag-breakingnews","tag-candidate","tag-cd2-race","tag-day","tag-gregory-ward","tag-headlines","tag-lepage","tag-maine","tag-maine-2nd-district-race","tag-maine-secretary","tag-maines-total-coverage","tag-matt-dunlap","tag-midterm-election","tag-news","tag-office","tag-official-election-results","tag-paul-lepage","tag-politics","tag-ranked-choice-tabulation","tag-ranked-choice-voting","tag-round","tag-state","tag-thursday","tag-top-stories","tag-topstories","tag-u-s-house-race","tag-vote","tag-wmtw","tag-write-in-candidate","tag-youtube"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/915183","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=915183"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/915183\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/915184"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=915183"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=915183"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=915183"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}