Election officials say the most important race in Maine should go to counting ranked choices

Republican leaders they radiate confidence that they will maintain it control of the US House as more races were decided in their favor on Thursday, with Democrats insisting they still see a path to the majority and were seeking certainty every vote is counted.

The Republicans won control of the US Senate early Wednesday.

Follow AP’s 2024 election coverage at: https://apnews.com/hub/election-2024.

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Election officials say the most important race in Maine should go to counting ranked choices

That’s what election officials in Maine say a crucial congressional race in the state must go to counting of the ranked choices to determine a winner.

Maine Democratic Rep. Jared Golden, a moderate known for defying his party, led by a narrow margin Friday over Republican Austin Theriault in a race that was still too early to call days after voting ended. speak. Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows said late Thursday that neither candidate received 50% of the vote, meaning ranked ballots should be counted. The Associated Press did not call the race.

Ranked-ranked voting typically comes into play in races with more than two candidates on the ballot. Golden and Theriault were the only candidates in the race for the 2nd Congressional District, but writing in candidates was an option, and some voters took advantage of it.

Theriault said Thursday he was asking for a recount of the election, although the results had not yet been tabulated at the time. A spokesperson for Golden’s campaign said the recount is fair, but the rankings are unnecessary.

“State Rep. Theriault has asserted his right to a hand recount and Congressman Golden agrees. So let’s just do it, rather than incur the delays and costs associated with a second round of elections,” the campaign said in a statement.

The Theriault campaign said Friday that it supported the rankings.

“There is a process underway and we look forward to seeing the process unfold according to the law,” campaign manager Shawn Roderick said.

In ranked-choice voting, the second choices of voters who chose a losing candidate are redistributed to the higher-ranking candidates.

The number of television viewers on election nights has fallen sharply compared to 2020 and 2016

The idea of ​​grabbing some popcorn and watching TV to see who has America elected its next president was much less attractive this year than in the past.

The Nielsen company said 42.3 million people watched the election night showings in between Kamala Harris And Donald Trump collapsed on Tuesday evening. That’s a sharp drop from the 56.9 million who watched in 2020, when Trump was competing with Joe Bidenand the 71.4 million who tuned in on election night 2016, Nielsen said.

Election night is often known as the Super Bowl for TV news, but this year even the NFL championship games were watched by more people.

Read more about television viewers on election night

Who is Susie Wiles, Donald Trump’s new White House chief of staff?

With her selection as President-elect Donald Trump ‘s new White House Chief of Staff, veteran political strategist from Florida Susie Wiles moves from a largely behind-the-scenes role of campaign co-chairman to the high-profile position of the president’s closest advisor and counselor.

She has been in political circles for years. But who is Wiles, the agent who will be the first woman to take on the powerful role of White House chief of staff?

Read more about Susie Wiles, Trump’s new chief of staff

An update from the AP Decision Desk on the races in Nevada and Arizona

Nevada: Late updates Thursday in Nevada’s Clark and Washoe counties did not add many votes to the count in the races for president and U.S. Senate. The deadline to receive and count mail-in ballots is Saturday. With potentially tens of thousands of ballots yet to be counted in the state’s two largest counties, it’s still too early to decide.

Arizona: A new day of vote counting in Arizona added tens of thousands of votes to the count Thursday, but hundreds of thousands of ballots remain to be counted — including nearly half a million in Maricopa County. Officials there are still processing advance ballots that arrived in October. The races for president and U.S. Senate remain too early to call.

The GOP gains more key seats in the House of Representatives, while Democrats maintain they still have a path to a majority

Republican leaders on Thursday predicted confidence they will maintain that control of the US House as more races were decided in their favor, while Democrats insisted they still saw a path to the majority and sought certainty every vote is counted.

The GOP took two more hard-fought votes seats in Pennsylvaniawhich became a grim battleground of democratic losses, up and down. The Democrats have scored another victory in New Yorkdefeating a third Republican incumbent in that state.

Both parties in the House of Representatives huddled privately on conference calls to assess the political landscape as Congress prepared to return next week a changed Washingtonwhere a whiff of MAGA-infused GOP power is within reach for the president-elect Donald Trump.

Visit again Thursday House calls