Election live updates: Who will win the House of Representatives, unnamed Senate races, results

Maine election officials say a crucial congressional race Ranked-choice voting must be conducted in the state to determine a winner.

Democratic Rep. Jared Golden of Maine, a moderate known for bucking his party, led Republican Austin Theriault by a narrow margin Friday in a race that was still early days after voting ended to be called.
Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows said late Thursday that neither candidate had reached the 50 percent mark of total votes, and that means ranked votes must be counted. The Associated Press has not called the race.

Ranked-choice voting is typically used in races where there are more than two candidates on the ballot. Golden and Theriault were the only candidates in the 2nd Congressional District race, but write-in candidates were an option and some voters took advantage of it.

Theriault said Thursday that he was requesting a recount of the election, even though the results had not been tabulated at the time. A spokesman for the Golden campaign said the recount was reasonable but the ranked count was unnecessary.

“Representative Theriault has asserted his right to a hand recount and Congressman Golden agrees. So let’s just do it rather than endure the delays and costs of a ranked runoff,” the campaign said in a statement.

The Theriault campaign signaled Friday that it supports the rankings.

“There is a process and we look forward to the process evolving in accordance with the law,” said campaign manager Shawn Roderick.

In ranked-choice voting, voters who selected a losing candidate's second choices are distributed to the higher-ranking candidates.