Only one New England Republican remains in Congress - and she could lose or retire in 2020

By James Hohmann
November 16 at 9:17 AM

THE BIG IDEA: There will not be a single Republican from New England in the U.S. House next year, after Maine’s secretary of state announced Thursday afternoon that Rep. Bruce Poliquin (R) was narrowly defeated by Democratic challenger Jared Golden after an instant runoff using ranked-choice voting. That leaves Sen. Susan Collins of Maine as the sole Republican survivor among the 33 members of Congress from New England – and there’s a real chance she’ll either retire or be defeated in 2020.

-- This can be viewed as part of the ongoing national realignment I’ve highlighted over the past few weeks. There are notable exceptions like Joe Manchin or Conor Lamb, but as federal elections become more nationalized than ever, it’s harder for moderate Democrats to get reelected in red states like Indiana, Missouri and North Dakota. And the reverse is true for Republicans in blue states.

-- This trend isn’t new, of course, but it’s been supercharged in the Trump era. President Trump won a single electoral vote from Maine in 2016 because he narrowly carried the very rural 2nd District, which Poliquin won in 2014 after it was held by Democrats for two decades. (The previous Republican to represent the district was Olympia Snowe, who gave it up to run for Senate in 1994.) That made Trump the first Republican presidential candidate since George W. Bush won New Hampshire in 2000 to get any electoral votes at all from New England.

-- Republicans have found success in New England governor’s races of late because they’re able to avoid the maw of Trump and the thicket of national issues. Charlie Baker in Massachusetts, Chris Sununu in New Hampshire and Phil Scott in Vermont each won second terms this month. But Democrats handily picked up the Maine governorship after eight years of GOP Gov. Paul LePage.

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