A new ranked-choice voting simulation ahead of next week’s primary election has former Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention Director Nirav Shah continuing to lead Democrats in the gubernatorial field, and two candidates rising to the top in the 2nd Congressional District.

A team of researchers from Cornell University, Yale University and Microsoft Research published an analysis Wednesday of the June 9 primary races for governor and the 2nd District. They found that Shah would win nearly all ranked-choice voting simulations, and that state Sen. Joe Baldacci, D-Bangor, would edge Jordan Wood in the 2nd District.

There are caveats. The analysis used the results of the May 27 University of New Hampshire Survey Center poll of the various Maine primary contests to then create 1,000 simulations that project the winners after instant runoffs. The researchers noted forecasting competitive ranked-choice elections is complex.

But the analysis offers an intriguing look at how Tuesday’s high-profile contests could shake out via the ranked-choice voting system.

Researchers did not simulate the Republican primaries because they noted Bobby Charles has maintained a “commanding lead” in his party’s gubernatorial race. Former Gov. Paul LePage is running uncontested in the 2nd District.

The U.S. Senate primary features Sullivan oysterman Graham Platner as the presumed Democratic nominee to face Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, in November. Gov. Janet Mills suspended her Senate campaign, but will appear on the June ballot; David Costello and write-in candidate Andrea LaFlamme are running, but they trail Platner badly in fundraising and in polls.

Maine’s ranked-choice system, in place since 2018, lets voters rank candidates on their ballot. An instant runoff happens if no one receives more than 50% of votes in the first round. The last-place candidate is eliminated, the second-choice votes of the eliminated candidate’s supporters are reallocated and the results are retabulated until one candidate receives a majority of votes.

In the gubernatorial race, the researchers noted former Maine Senate President Troy Jackson, D-Allagash, had surged in the latest poll to compete neck-and-neck with Shah for first-place votes. They also noted he has formed an alliance with Secretary of State Shenna Bellows and former Maine House Speaker Hannah Pingree. But after accounting for ranked-choice preferences, Shah won 97.4% of the simulations to 2.6% for Jackson.

The researchers noted Pingree and Bellows supporters in the poll frequently rank Shah over Jackson.

Still, the analysis mentioned Jackson having “strong support among younger voters, whose turnout has been rising.” Researchers noted that his alliance with Pingree and Bellows was announced in May; preferences could still shift ahead of Tuesday. In the simulations that gave Jackson a victory, he had strong enough first-choice vote shares to offset the rankings favoring Shah.

In the 2nd District primary featuring four Democrats hoping to take on LePage in the fall, the few independent polls have been somewhat murky. Some have Baldacci ahead, others have Wood or State Auditor Matt Dunlap as the winner. (Social worker Paige Loud has trailed those three.) The latest UNH poll had Wood, a former Capitol Hill staffer, edging Baldacci 23% to 22%.

But the new analysis noted the poll had nearly a quarter of respondents as undecided, and that second-choice selections put Baldacci ahead of Wood. For example, among the voters who put Dunlap first, nearly twice as many (34.9%) put Baldacci second compared to Wood (19.3%).

The simulations found Baldacci benefiting from those second-choice votes. Baldacci won 67% of the ranked-choice simulations, while Wood won 20.5%, and Dunlap 12.5% of them. Loud did not win any of the simulations.

In the 15% of simulations that reached a Baldacci-Dunlap showdown, Baldacci frequently won. In the 10.5% of simulations that reached a final round of Wood versus Dunlap, Dunlap actually dominated Wood thanks to the way rankings broke.