Sanders wins Maine straw poll, could sweep delegates without ranked-choice voting

Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders showed some early online organizing muscle in Maine, winning 53 percent of first-choice votes in Beacon’s ranked-choice voting presidential straw poll. If actual primary results are similar and ranked-choice voting isn’t used, Sanders could claim 100 percent of Maine’s delegates.

The results of the opt-in survey of 1,378 participants are not scientifically predictive and are not meant to forecast next year’s primary. They do however, indicate some early strengths for certain candidates and highlight some important dynamics of the race.

Entreprenuer Andrew Yang and Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard were second and third in first-choice votes, with 11 percent and 10 percent, respectively, but faded over 13 rounds of ranked-choice voting. As other candidates were eliminated, South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg picked up enough support to leapfrog them both for a second-place finish in the final count.

Signs of online organizing

Sanders’ strength in the poll comes in part because the voting link was shared by Sanders’ supporters on a handful of Maine-based message boards and Facebook groups, an example of how the infrastructure built during his 2016 run may continue to buttress his campaign four years later.

Other candidates who performed perhaps surprisingly well in the straw poll also had some online organizing to thank. Yang, a universal basic income proponent, has received significant online attention (some of it unwanted) and Gabbard saw a jump in support when her father, Hawaii State Senator Mike Gabbard, posted a link to the straw poll on his official Facebook page.

Both Yang and Gabbard received more support from voters that metadata shows likely live outside Maine, while the next four candidates by first preference, Buttigieg, Senators Elizabeth Warren and Kamala Harris and former Vice President Joe Biden received a greater proportion of their support from in-state.

Biden, despite leading in some national polls, received only 3 percent of first-choice votes and was eliminated in the ninth round of ranked-choice voting. Former Texas Congressman Beto O’Rourke garnered 2 percent of first-choice votes, and eight other current or potential candidates won less than 1 percent each.

A potentially undemocratic outcome

The survey also revealed a major potential pitfall in the Democrats’ democratic process as a result of the crowded primary field. Party rules state that no candidate who wins less than 15 percent of the vote in a primary can be awarded delegates. With no candidate other than Sanders crossing that threshold in first-choice votes in this hypothetical exercise, his 53 percent would be enough to win 100% of state delegates under a first-past-the-post system, which is one of the proposals currently being considered by the legislature.

Henry Allen of the Brookings Institute warned about this kind of “undemocratic” outcome in January. Maryland Congressman Jamie Raskin and electoral reform advocates wrote an op-ed in The Hill urging states across the country to adopt ranked-choice voting as a potential solution.

With a ranked-choice primary, as proposed in a bill sponsored by Senate President Troy Jackson, Sanders would win 80 percent of Maine’s delegates, due to the support he accrued as other candidates were eliminated. Buttigieg would claim 20 percent, finally crossing the 15 percent threshold in the final round.

In either case, Sanders, or another candidate who can cross the eligibility threshold while their opponents do not, stands to win an outsized proportion of the delegates at stake. 53 percent is not a completely implausible result given Sanders’ 64 percent support in Maine’s Democratic caucuses in 2016.

(Photo: Sen. Bernie Sanders at a Portland, Maine rally in 2016 | official photo)