Former Governor Paul LePage of Maine has been confirmed as the victor in the state’s 2nd Congressional District following the completion of ranked-choice voting for the November 3 elections.
According to the tabulated results, LePage garnered 170,890 votes, amounting to 50.81 percent, while Democratic candidate Matthew Dunlap received 165,432 votes or 49.18 percent, from a total of approximately 341,500 ballots cast.
On election night, initial counts showed LePage with 170,263 votes against 164,845 for Dunlap. Write-in candidates received 123 votes (0.036 percent), and 6,017 ballots were left blank (1.763 percent). Due to none of the candidates achieving a majority, the ranked-choice process was initiated, redistributing votes from lower-ranked candidates and blank ballots until one candidate surpassed 50 percent.
After excluding blank ballots, LePage had a majority of the first-choice votes. The redistribution from write-in votes provided him a slight increase, extending his lead to just under 5,500 votes. The Associated Press officially declared LePage the winner after the final tabulations.
Both candidates had previously acknowledged the results; LePage declared victory on November 4, and Dunlap conceded the following day, indicating that LePage’s initial lead was insurmountable.
POLL: Will America Regret Giving The Democrats Power?
BREAKING: It's official.
Paul LePage is your next congressman for CD-2.
Final results after the RCV tabulation:
LePage: 170,890 – 50.81%
Dunlap: 165,432 – 49.18% pic.twitter.com/lrabNhiser— The Maine Wire (@TheMaineWire) November 12, 2026
LePage, 78, was Maine’s governor from 2011 to 2019. Originally from Lewiston, he has often claimed to be “Donald Trump before Donald Trump was famous.” After term limits precluded his governorship, he returned from Florida in 2022 to seek another term but lost to Democrat Janet Mills.
In this role, he will take over from Jared Golden, a Democrat who chose not to pursue re-election for personal and political reasons after serving since 2019 as a moderate willing to break with his party.
Maine’s 2nd District encompasses over 27,000 square miles primarily consisting of rural areas in northern and western Maine, making it the largest congressional district east of the Mississippi. In the previous presidential election, President Donald Trump won this district with 53.5 percent of the vote compared to Kamala Harris’s 44.5 percent, although Golden was re-elected through the state’s ranked-choice voting system.
The district has awarded its solitary electoral vote to the Republican presidential nominee in each of the last three elections.
LePage’s win marks the only shift from Democratic to Republican control in the House during the 2026 midterm elections without the aid of redistricting adjustments. Other Republican gains, particularly in Texas and Tennessee, were influenced by newly drawn district maps that changed voter demographics.
