The Maine Idea: Democracy starts with primary elections
By Douglas RooksThe Maine Idea
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The results of the Nov. 3 election, for many, still seem contradictory: Donald Trump was soundly defeated by Joe Biden, but of 23 U.S. Senate seats held by Republicans, just two were won by Democrats. Pending runoff elections in Georgia, the GOP could still control the Senate.
Yet such analyses don’t even scrape the surface, let alone explain what happened. Rather than voting for “divided government,” as said a thousand times, voters chose between two candidates in each race – and those choices are completely understandable.
The Sara Gideon-Susan Collins contest was typical of national results, but also tracked the 2014 Maine governor’s race. In that campaign, Democrat Mike Michaud gave up his 2nd District Congressional seat to oppose incumbent Paul LePage – a Republican of a type never seen before in Maine.
Douglas Rooks
The results of the Nov. 3 election, for many, still seem contradictory: Donald Trump was soundly defeated by Joe Biden, but of 23 U.S. Senate seats held by Republicans, just two were won by Democrats. Pending runoff elections in Georgia, the GOP could still control the Senate.
Yet such analyses don’t even scrape the surface, let alone explain what happened. Rather than voting for “divided government,” as said a thousand times, voters chose between two candidates in each race – and those choices are completely understandable.
The Sara Gideon-Susan Collins contest was typical of national results, but also tracked the 2014 Maine governor’s race. In that campaign, Democrat Mike Michaud gave up his 2nd District Congressional seat to oppose incumbent Paul LePage – a Republican of a type never seen before in Maine.