The presidential race could very well come down to a single electoral vote, Maine congressional candidate Austin Theriault, a former NASCAR driver hoping to unseat Democrat Rep. Jared Golden (D-ME) in the state’s Second Congressional District, said during an interview on Breitbart News Daily this week.
Maine is a unique state, as it stands as one of only two — the other being Nebraska — that does not award electoral college votes on a winner-take-all basis. Rather, the winner in each congressional district — there are only two in Maine — is awarded one electoral vote, and the statewide winner is awarded two. When asked about how this could impact the race, Theriault pointed to some predictions showing that it really could all come down to Maine.
“Explain to us how this works, because it could literally come down to your district and the one in Nebraska to determine the president. That is within the realm of possibility,” host Mike Slater said.
“Absolutely. And there’s some predictions that are saying that it literally could come down to one electoral vote. And if that’s the case, Maine’s Second District will have a huge say in who wins the election,” he explained.
“Maine splits up their electoral votes. So district two, which is where I’m running for Congress, you know, whoever wins it will get one vote. CD one, which is the southern part of the state, a little bit, you know, quite a bit more liberal, has one electoral vote,” he said. The First Congressional District includes areas such as Portland.
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Breitbart · Austin Theriault – September 3, 2024“And then whoever wins statewide gets two. So there’s a lot of work that we’re doing in Maine’s Second [Congressional] District to obviously ensure that President Trump’s victorious. He won it in 2016 and 2020 but it’s, you know, frankly, it’s a little closer than we’d like right now,” he said, pointing to their massive recruitment effort to get people involved in the election.
“We’re having everybody, you know, getting involved, and people are getting involved in this election that I never would have thought would have ever gotten involved in politics. And that’s sort of what’s going on in our country right now, where we have people that are just disappointed in their — in the politicians,” Theriault explained.
“They’re disappointed, obviously, in this administration, but they’re even disappointed in, you know, the down-ballot races, people who have run for Congress, like my opponent, Jared Golden,” he continued, calling out the Democrat incumbent for talking a “big game” in 2018.
“He said he was going to do all kinds of things when he ran for Congress in the district, but then he went to D.C., and D.C. changed him. And that’s, you know, that’s the problem we’re seeing around the country. We’re seeing D.C. change a lot of people, and that’s unfortunate,” he said, explaining that it is precisely what the Founding Fathers did not want in leaders.
“That’s not what the Founding Fathers wanted for our country. You know, they didn’t want career politicians. They didn’t want people who said one thing and did another. They wanted statesmen. They wanted people who are going to do what was right and and that’s what we’re fighting for in this election,” he added.
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