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By Anna Rahmanan
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Susan Collins has spent three decades persuading Maine voters to distinguish between a Republican senator and the Republican Party. Once the votes are counted tonight, we may finally learn how far that distinction can stretch.
For in Collins, the great quarrels of the 2026 midterms seem to have found a single home. Trumpism and political independence, abortion and Medicaid, the price of groceries and the war in Gaza: nearly every argument dividing the American electorate has found its way into the political life of one senator from Maine. And almost every one comes down to the same question: where does personal conviction end and party responsibility begin?
Her race against Democrat Troy Jackson offers proof that the contradictions both parties are asking voters to resolve can be found in the record of a single politician.
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Think about it: Collins has defied Trump, voting to convict him at his second impeachment trial, while also helping advance his agenda by supporting major Republican legislation and confirming many of his nominees.
She supports abortion rights but voted to confirm Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh, two Supreme Court justices who subsequently voted to overturn Roe v. Wade, arguing at the time that Kavanaugh would respect established precedent.
She opposed Medicaid cuts in Trump's sweeping tax-and-spending legislation, even after voting to advance the bill procedurally, a distinction that allowed debate to proceed without committing her to supporting the final measure.
She has delivered concessions on tariffs while her constituents struggle with everyday costs. Pull at almost any thread of the national debate, and, sooner or later, it leads back to Susan Collins.
And at the heart of it all lies perhaps the defining dilemma of American politics in the Trump era: whether a politician can meaningfully separate herself from the party whose power she helps sustain.
For Collins, whose political identity has long rested on her independence, the question is particularly consequential. Voters must decide not merely what she believes, but how much those beliefs matter when the consequences of her party's decisions extend far beyond her own votes.
Trumpism: The Party and the Politician
The midterms are, in part, a referendum on Trump. In Maine, that referendum gets a bit complicated as Collins voted to convict Trump after January 6, yet remains a Republican senator whose party controls the White House.
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At an October debate, Jackson accused her of voting with Trump 96 percent of the time. Collins cited a broader analysis showing 72 percent agreement and argued that she breaks with her party more frequently than any other senator.
The dispute captures the national election's central argument in miniature: whether dissent from Trump is enough to distinguish a Republican from Trumpism.
Abortion: Both Sides of the Divide
Perhaps nowhere does Collins contain so much of the midterm election within her own record as on abortion.
She supports abortion rights and criticized the Supreme Court's reversal of Roe v. Wade…Yet she helped confirm two justices who voted for that reversal.
Collins maintains that Kavanaugh's assurances about respecting precedent informed her decision to support him. Her critics point to the ruling he ultimately helped deliver.
Here in full display is the abortion argument of 2026, condensed into one 73-year-old senator: Republicans seeking credit for their individual positions and Democrats asking voters to remember the consequences of Republican power.
Collins has become an unusually vivid example of the distinction, simultaneously defending abortion rights and defending the decisions that helped bring about their reversal.
Medicaid: A National Fight in One Vote
The argument over Medicaid offers another version of the same dilemma.
Collins opposed Trump's 2025 tax-and-spending bill, warning that its Medicaid reductions could endanger rural hospitals. She had nevertheless voted to bring the legislation to the floor, allowing her to negotiate a rural health fund.
Jackson called that fund inadequate. Collins argued that her intervention delivered assistance that otherwise might never have existed.
The national argument over health care thus becomes a question about Collins herself: should voters credit a senator for mitigating a policy she helped move toward passage?
Affordability: The Price of Independence
Even the cost-of-living debate has found its way into Collins's record.
She secured tariff exemptions for Canadian road salt and cement, demonstrating the practical value of her influence in Washington.
But exemptions offer limited reassurance to households facing higher prices. Collins's defense is that she can deliver specific relief, a note that Jackson challenges by telling voters that they should judge the economy they experience.
Here, the midterms' argument about affordability meets the argument about incumbency: how much credit does a politician deserve for easing the consequences of policies she opposes?
Israel: Another Divide Reaches Maine
The war in Gaza has likewise entered the contest, bringing competing visions of America's relationship with Israel into Collins's reelection campaign.
Collins has defended U.S. military assistance to Israel, while Jackson has challenged offensive military aid. Their differences have attracted competing pro-Israel organizations: AIPAC has backed Collins, while J Street has supported Jackson.
The same divisions over Israeli security, Palestinian suffering and the boundaries of criticism that have unsettled national politics now help define a Senate race in Maine.
The Midterms in Miniature
All of Tuesday’s races feel imbued with even more meaning than other midterm elections have, but this particular one seems to resonate even more. The arguments Americans are having about Trump—abortion, health care and the economy—have all become arguments about Susan Collins. Her political career has become a kind of miniature history of the country's divisions, with the competing claims of party loyalty and personal independence written into the same voting record.
Tonight, Maine will offer one answer to the question running through these midterms: how far can a Republican distance herself from the consequences of Republican rule?
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