Question:

This November, the General Election in Maine will use ranked-choice voting for the
federal offices of U.S. Senate and U.S. Representative to Congress. Voters will rank
their first choice, second choice, etc. as opposed to voting for just one candidate.

6. If the election for U.S. Senate were held today, and the candidates were: Republican
Eric Brakey, Independent Angus King, or Democrat Zak Ringelstein, who would you
rank as your first choice at this time?
(N=500) n %

Brakey – Republican ------------------------------------------- 125 25.00
King – Independent--------------------------------------------- 258 51.60
Ringelstein – Democrat -----------------------------------------44 8.80
Undecided ----------------------------------------------------------73 14.60

{U.S. Senate Voters Who Had a First Choice}
7. Who would you rank as your second choice: Republican Eric Brakey, Independent
Angus King, or Democrat Zak Ringelstein?
(N=427) n %

Brakey – Republican ---------------------------------------------39 9.13
King – Independent-----------------------------------------------69 16.16
Ringelstein – Democrat --------------------------------------- 126 29.51
Undecided -------------------------------------------------------- 193 45.20

Ranked choice voting composite despite King receiving a majority in Q6.
(N=493) n %

Brakey – Republican ------------------------------------------- 132 26.77
King – Independent--------------------------------------------- 288 58.42
Ringelstein – Democrat ------------------------------------------ 0 0.00
Undecided ----------------------------------------------------------73 14.81

About this Poll

Statement of Methodology: This survey of 500 likely Maine general-election voters was conducted between August 2 and August 6, 2018, and is based on live telephone interviews of adults who indicated they were likely to vote in the November 2018 general election for governor and US Senate. Each area’s quota and demographic information -- including race and age -- was determined from previous like elections and 2010 Census data. Samples of both standard landline and cell phones were called using a probability-proportionate-to-size method, which means that the phone numbers assigned to each county were proportional to the number of likely voters expected based on similar past elections. The 16 Maine counties were grouped into four general regions. Respondents in the household were selected by initially asking for the youngest adult. The margin of sampling error for results based on the total sample is +/-4.4 percentage points. Error margins increase for smaller subgroups in the cross-tabulation document that follows.