Former President Donald Trump is projected to win Maine’s Second Congressional District, taking one of the state’s four electoral college votes.
With 43 percent of precincts reporting in Maine’s Second Congressional District, Trump leads Vice President Kamala Harris 55.5 percent to her 42.6 percent. The race was called by Decision Desk HQ just before midnight ET on Tuesday.
Harris, meanwhile, is projected to win Maine’s three other electoral college votes, with the Associated Press (AP) showing her leading Trump by 51.1 percent at the time of this writing.
Trump winning Maine’s Second Congressional District, however, makes for the second time there has ever been a split electoral college vote in the state, the first time being in 2016, when Trump also won Maine’s Second Congressional District.
Maine’s Electoral College Votes Explained:
While the presidential candidate who wins the popular vote in a state usually receives all of that state’s electoral college votes, two states have taken a different approach: Maine and Nebraska.
These states have instead decided to allocate two electoral college votes to the state’s popular vote winner, and one electoral college vote to the winner of each of the states’ congressional districts.
As for Maine, the state has a total of four electoral college votes, with two of those votes representing the winner of the popular vote in Maine’s two U.S. Congressional districts. The state’s two other electoral college votes represent the winner of the popular vote statewide.
Notably, this method creates the opportunity for there to be a split electoral college vote.
Maine, which established this method ahead of the 1972 presidential election, saw its first split electoral college vote in 2016 when Trump won the state’s Second Congressional District, which consists of the majority of Maine’s land area sitting north of the Portland and Augusta metropolitan areas.
The last time a Republican candidate won Maine’s statewide electoral college vote was 36 years ago when former President George H. W. Bush defeated former Massachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis in the 1988 presidential election.
As Breitbart News reported in September, polling results showed Trump comfortably leading in Maine’s Second Congressional District.
Alana Mastrangelo is a reporter for Breitbart News. You can follow her on Facebook and X at @ARmastrangelo, and on Instagram.
