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Maine's 1st Congressional District election, 2020 (July 14 Republican primary)

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2022
2018
Maine's 1st Congressional District
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Democratic primary
Republican primary
General election
Election details
Filing deadline: March 16, 2020
Primary: July 14, 2020
General: November 3, 2020

Pre-election incumbent:
Chellie Pingree (Democratic)
How to vote
Poll times: 6 a.m. to 8 p.m.
Voting in Maine
Race ratings
Cook Political Report: Solid Democratic
Inside Elections: Solid Democratic
Sabato's Crystal Ball: Safe Democratic
Ballotpedia analysis
U.S. Senate battlegrounds
U.S. House battlegrounds
Federal and state primary competitiveness
Ballotpedia's Election Analysis Hub, 2020
See also
Maine's 1st Congressional District
U.S. Senate1st2nd
Maine elections, 2020
U.S. Congress elections, 2020
U.S. Senate elections, 2020
U.S. House elections, 2020

A Republican Party primary took place on July 14, 2020, in Maine's 1st Congressional District to determine which Republican candidate would run in the district's general election on November 3, 2020.

Jay Allen advanced from the Republican primary for U.S. House Maine District 1.

Candidate filing deadline Primary election General election
March 16, 2020
July 14, 2020
November 3, 2020


Heading into the election, the incumbent was Chellie Pingree (Democrat), who was first elected in 2008.

A primary election is an election in which registered voters select a candidate that they believe should be a political party's candidate for elected office to run in the general election. They are also used to choose convention delegates and party leaders. Primaries are state-level and local-level elections that take place prior to a general election. Maine utilizes a semi-closed primary process, in which both registered party members and unaffiliated voters may participate. Unaffiliated voters may vote in one partisan primary of their choosing in each election.[1][2]

For information about which offices are nominated via primary election, see this article.

This page focuses on Maine's 1st Congressional District Republican primary. For more in-depth information on the district's Democratic primary and the general election, see the following pages:

Election procedure changes in 2020

See also: Changes to election dates, procedures, and administration in response to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, 2020

Ballotpedia provided comprehensive coverage of how election dates and procedures changed in 2020. While the majority of changes occurred as a result of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, some changes occurred for other reasons.

Maine modified its primary election process as follows:

  • Election postponements: The primary election was postponed from June 9, 2020, to July 14.
  • Voting procedures: The voter pre-registration deadline was extended to July 7.
  • Political party events: The Democratic Party of Maine canceled its state convention, originally scheduled for May 29-30.

For a full timeline about election modifications made in response to the COVID-19 outbreak, click here.


Candidates and election results

Republican primary election

Republican Primary for U.S. House Maine District 1

The following candidates advanced in the ranked-choice voting election: Jay Allen in round 1 .


Total votes: 31,124
Candidate Connection = candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey.

District analysis

See also: The Cook Political Report's Partisan Voter Index
See also: FiveThirtyEight's elasticity scores

The 2017 Cook Partisan Voter Index for this district was D+8, meaning that in the previous two presidential elections, this district's results were 8 percentage points more Democratic than the national average. This made Maine's 1st Congressional District the 137th most Democratic nationally.[3]

FiveThirtyEight's September 2018 elasticity score for states and congressional districts measured "how sensitive it is to changes in the national political environment." This district's elasticity score was 1.15. This means that for every 1 point the national political mood moved toward a party, the district was expected to move 1.15 points toward that party.[4]

Campaign finance

This section contains campaign finance figures from the Federal Election Commission covering all candidate fundraising and spending in this election.[5] It does not include information on fundraising before the current campaign cycle or on spending by satellite groups. The numbers in this section are updated as candidates file new campaign finance reports. Candidates for Congress are required to file financial reports on a quarterly basis, as well as two weeks before any primary, runoff, or general election in which they will be on the ballot and upon the termination of any campaign committees.[6] The chart below contains data from financial reports submitted to the Federal Election Commission.

Name Party Receipts* Disbursements** Cash on hand Date
Jay Allen Republican Party $79,585 $69,853 $9,731 As of December 31, 2020

Source: Federal Elections Commission, "Campaign finance data," 2020. This product uses the openFEC API but is not endorsed or certified by the Federal Election Commission (FEC).

* According to the FEC, "Receipts are anything of value (money, goods, services or property) received by a political committee."
** According to the FEC, a disbursement "is a purchase, payment, distribution, loan, advance, deposit or gift of money or anything of value to influence a federal election," plus other kinds of payments not made to influence a federal election.


Ranked-choice voting

Ranked-choice voting in Maine

Maine uses ranked-choice voting for all federal and state-level (e.g., governor, state senator, and state representative) primary elections. Ranked-choice voting is used in general elections for federal offices only (i.e., U.S. Congress and the presidency).[7]

Click here for information on the history of ranked-choice voting in Maine.

How ranked-choice voting works

Broadly speaking, the ranked-choice voting process unfolds as follows for single-winner elections:

  1. Voters rank the candidates for a given office by preference on their ballots.
  2. If a candidate wins an outright majority of first-preference votes (i.e., 50 percent plus one), he or she will be declared the winner.
  3. If, on the other hand, no candidates win an outright majority of first-preference votes, the candidate with the fewest first-preference votes is eliminated.
  4. All first-preference votes for the failed candidate are eliminated, lifting the second-preference choices indicated on those ballots.
  5. A new tally is conducted to determine whether any candidate has won an outright majority of the adjusted voters.
  6. The process is repeated until a candidate wins a majority of votes cast.

Example

Assume that there are four candidates for mayor in a hypothetical city. The table below presents the raw first-preference vote totals for each candidate.

Raw first-preference vote tallies in a hypothetical mayoral race
Candidate First-preference votes Percentage
Candidate A 475 46.34%
Candidate B 300 29.27%
Candidate C 175 17.07%
Candidate D 75 7.32%

In the above scenario, no candidate won an outright majority of first-preference votes. As a result, the candidate (Candidate D) with the smallest number of first-preference votes is eliminated. The ballots that listed candidate D as the first preference are adjusted, raising their second-preference candidates. Assume that, of the 75 first-preference votes for Candidate D, 50 listed Candidate A as their second preference and 25 listed Candidate B. The adjusted vote totals would be as follows:

Adjusted vote tallies in a hypothetical mayoral race
Candidate Adjusted first-preference votes Percentage
Candidate A 525 51.22%
Candidate B 325 31.71%
Candidate C 175 17.07%

On the second tally, Candidate A secured 51.22 percent of the vote, thereby winning the election.

Note: The above is a simplified example used for illustrative purposes. Specific procedures vary by jurisdiction and according to the nature of the election (i.e., whether it is a single-winner or multi-winner contest).

General election race ratings

See also: Race rating definitions and methods

Ballotpedia provides race ratings from four outlets: The Cook Political Report, Inside Elections, Sabato's Crystal Ball, and DDHQ/The Hill. Each race rating indicates if one party is perceived to have an advantage in the race and, if so, the degree of advantage:

  • Safe and Solid ratings indicate that one party has a clear edge and the race is not competitive.
  • Likely ratings indicate that one party has a clear edge, but an upset is possible.
  • Lean ratings indicate that one party has a small edge, but the race is competitive.[8]
  • Toss-up ratings indicate that neither party has an advantage.

Race ratings are informed by a number of factors, including polling, candidate quality, and election result history in the race's district or state.[9][10][11]

Race ratings: Maine's 1st Congressional District election, 2020
Race trackerRace ratings
November 3, 2020October 27, 2020October 20, 2020October 13, 2020
The Cook Political ReportSolid DemocraticSolid DemocraticSolid DemocraticSolid Democratic
Inside Elections with Nathan L. GonzalesSolid DemocraticSolid DemocraticSolid DemocraticSolid Democratic
Larry J. Sabato's Crystal BallSafe DemocraticSafe DemocraticSafe DemocraticSafe Democratic
Note: Ballotpedia updates external race ratings every week throughout the election season.

See also

External links

Footnotes

  1. NCSL, "State Primary Election Types," accessed June 12, 2024
  2. Main Legislature Revised Statutes, "§341. Unenrolled voter participation in primary elections allowed," accessed June 12, 2024
  3. Cook Political Report, "Introducing the 2017 Cook Political Report Partisan Voter Index," April 7, 2017
  4. FiveThirtyEight, "Election Update: The Most (And Least) Elastic States And Districts," September 6, 2018
  5. Fundraising by primary candidates can be found on the race's respective primary election page. Fundraising by general election candidates can be found on the race's general election page.
  6. Federal Election Commission, "2022 Quarterly Reports," accessed March 2, 2022
  7. Maine.gov, "Ranked-choice Voting (RCV)," accessed February 24, 2022
  8. Inside Elections also uses Tilt ratings to indicate an even smaller advantage and greater competitiveness.
  9. Amee LaTour, "Email correspondence with Nathan Gonzalez," April 19, 2018
  10. Amee LaTour, "Email correspondence with Kyle Kondik," April 19, 2018
  11. Amee LaTour, "Email correspondence with Charlie Cook," April 22, 2018


Senators
Representatives
District 1
District 2
Democratic Party (2)
Republican Party (1)
Independent (1)