Maine is one of a handful of states that use Ranked Choice Voting, where voters rank in order of preference who they would like to see win. In this case, when the bottom candidates were eliminated, their votes were reallocated to their second and third choices until a remaining candidate received over 50 percent.

Republican Austin Theriault failed to unseat Golden, despite the Democrat's support for an assault weapons ban.

Democratic Rep. Jared Golden won reelection to Congress through Maine’s ranked choice system on Friday. It’s the third time in four elections in the hotly contested district that Golden won after votes were retabulated because first choices failed to produce a majority for any candidate.