Thread by @fawfulfan

Since a lot of people are now suddenly noticing #MESen polls and how difficult defeating Susan Collins could be, let's discuss a few important things that we need to understand going into that election.

First: name recognition is absolutely everything. Collins is one of the most well-known people in Maine, she has a well-established brand, and that counts for a lot. It isn't going to be easy to shift public attitudes about her.

Second: Maine is a rare case of a state with millions of what we might call "true independents". In a lot of states, most "independents" are just people in the out-party who don't want to admit that to their neighbors. In Maine, people are really independents for the sake of it.

Third: because Maine is now a ranked-choice state, elections there don't work quite the way they would in other states.

You don't necessarily have to consolidate voters behind one candidate and pray that one candidate gets more votes than Collins (although that would be great).

Rather, you need to maximize turnout of people who are voting for *anyone but Collins*.

In other words, voters who rank the Indie #1 and Collins #3 are more important than voters who rank the Dem #1 and Collins #2 are.

My worry is that people are going to go into this race not understanding these rules, and trash independent candidates as spoilers. They're not. Spoilers don't exist in Maine.

Anyone who is not Collins is your ally.

There's a reason Republicans fought like hell to kill ranked choice voting in Maine. They know that in a politically split state like theirs, a system that doesn't allow your opponent's vote to be split hurts them. That's why Bruce Poliquin is no longer a representative.

Use it.

To sum up, if we want to beat Collins in #MESen:

1) Go scorched earth on her.
2) Welcome, don't trash independents.
3) Voters ranking Collins third matter more than voters ranking Democrats first.

Thanks for your time.