10
Loading video...
By Hugh Cameron
Reporter
0
Share
Newsweek is a Trust Project member
See more of our trusted coverage when you search.Prefer Newsweek on Googleto see more of our trusted coverage when you search.
The final polls coming out of the Maine Senate Race have shown the Democrat Troy Jackson with a notable lead over his Republican rival, incumbent Senator Susan Collins.
Jackson held a 6-point advantage in the latest survey from the New York Times and Siena University, while leading Collins by 9 points and 5 points in polls from the University of New Hampshire and YouGov, respectively.
Monday also saw the release of a survey from AtlasIntel, which put this advantage at 9 points. Collins did lead 50.6 percent to 49.4 percent in an Emerson College poll conducted October 31 to November 1 among 600 likely voters, though this was within its margin of error.
Read More on News
Maine is one of the seven battlegrounds on which the balance of power in the Senate will depend. The state has not elected a Democrat to the U.S. Senate since George Mitchell, who left office in 1995. One expert went as far as saying Collins was “one of the most difficult Republicans to unseat.”
Newsweek has contacted both campaigns for comment.
What the Latest Polls Show
Jackson entered the race in late July as a replacement for Graham Platner, who dropped out following accusations of sexual assault which he has denied. The Democrat has since led in the majority of major polls, though most have fallen within their respective margins of error. But aside from the Emerson College survey, the polls published Sunday and Monday have given Jackson some of his strongest results yet.
The Times/Siena poll—conducted October 27 to November 1 among 714 Maine voters—had Jackson at 51 percent and Collins at 45 percent. This marks a major shift from mid-September, when Collins was leading 49 percent to 46 percent.
He is more trusted on the cost of living (+7), “what’s best for ordinary Mainers” (+7) and “foreign wars” (+3). He trails Collins by a point on immigration.
Despite this advantage, he continues to struggle in terms of general favorability. In the seven battlegrounds where the poll was conducted, Democrats are ahead in every race with the exception of Maine, where Jackson currently sits on a net negative rating of 3, compared with negative 1 for Collins.
The University of New Hampshire survey, fielded October 27 to 31 among 1,633 likely voters, had Jackson leading Collins 54 percent to 45 percent, widened from a 3-point lead when he first entered the contest in July.
Meanwhile, YouGov polled 1,503 likely voters between October 26 and 29, and found that 52 percent were supporting Jackson compared with 47 percent siding with Collins.
Latest Developments in Maine Senate Race
Several key topics have emerged in the Maine Senate race which, like many others across the country, has been heavily influenced by Americans’ views on the current administration.
...
Campaign finance and corruption became key themes following a report from ProPublica which alleged that federal investigators were looking into the Collins camp over its potential involvement in a pay-to-play scheme with a defense contractor. Collins' office “categorically” denied any wrongdoing by the senator.
The Jackson campaign has also focused on Collins’ support for aspects of Donald Trump’s agenda during his first and second terms, notably the Iran war, her vote to confirm Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court, where he later voted with the majority to overturn Roe v. Wade.
Collins has said that she has pushed back against Trump when his policies have negatively impacted Mainers. She has attacked Jackson over an alleged lack of experience and his record in the Maine legislature.
And the race has given rise to increasingly personal attacks leveled against both candidates, some of these appearing in ads from the campaigns themselves. Jackson has repeatedly called the five-term senator “corrupt” and accused her of profiting from her political office, while Collins has made mention of reports that Jackson’s partner, Lana Pelletier, is his cousin.
Reflecting the closeness of the contest along with its significance for Senate control, the race has drawn close to $218 million in broadcast ad spending and become the most expensive of this year’s election cycle when adjusted for population, according to USA Today analysis of AdImpact data up to October 28 .
...
As with nearly every other battleground state, ad spending in Maine has favored the Republican, though experts caution that such a financial advantage is not guaranteed to translate into electoral success.
“There's a tendency to assume that more money means more influence, but that's not necessarily how campaigns work,” said Nicholas Jacobs, the inaugural director of the Public Policy Lab at Colby College in Waterville, Maine.
“Outside groups are pouring money into Maine precisely because the race is competitive and control of the Senate is at stake,” he told Newsweek. “In other words, the spending is as much a consequence of the race's importance as it is a potential cause of the outcome.”
Can Jackson Defeat Collins?
Despite leading in the majority of polls, including by wide margins in the most recent surveys, Democrats have enjoyed similar encouraging signs in their past—unsuccessful—attempts to unseat Senator Collins.
As in 2026, Collins significantly trailed Sara Gideon ahead of the 2020 elections. The final polling averages from RealClearPolling that year had Collins nearly four points behind, but the senator went on to win the race easily, 51 percent to 42 percent. And on Monday, RealClearPolling showed Jackson with a 3.3-point edge over Collins.
Comfortable wins in each of her five Senate races, coupled with being the only Republican senator from a blue state, has earned Collins a reputation for political durability and insulation from prevalent national, political trends.
Matt Barreto, faculty director of the UCLA Voting Rights Project, called Collins “one of the most difficult Republicans to unseat” in recent comments to Newsweek, a characterization often linked to her demonstrated willingness to cross the aisle on Capitol Hill.
...
The Portman Center for Policy Solutions at the University of Cincinnati listed her as the most bipartisan Republican senator for the 118th Congress (2023-24), both in terms of how much support her bills receive from, and how much support she gives to, Democrats. The Lugar Center Bipartisan Index likewise placed Collins first in its 2023 rankings, the ninth time in 11 years she had secured the top spot.
And a Bangor Daily News analysis from August revealed that Collins had cast more deciding votes against her party than any senator who served alongside her since 1997, though these represented a small share of her overall voting record.
Former state Senator Phillip Harriman, a Republican, said that her tenure and bipartisan record were helping her overcome Mainers’ current opinions on the “polarizing” governance of Donald Trump—60 percent of those surveyed by YouGov said they disapproved of Donald Trump’s job as president, including 54 percent who did so “strongly.”
CNN/SSRS polling of 783 likely Maine voters in October also found that she was viewed as less beholden to the party or president than other Republican candidates. Nearly half (46 percent) said Collins would support people in Maine over Trump and the GOP, compared with 35 percent for Mike Rogers in Michigan, 33 percent for Ken Paxton in Texas and 32 percent for Roger Marshall in Kansas.
But the Senate is looking like a pickup for the Democratic Party this year, and Collins is seen as one of the most vulnerable Republicans in the running.
“While it seemed impossible the Senate could change hands one year ago, today it does seem possible, almost entirely due to Trump's low approval ratings and his inability to lower gas prices or address affordability,” said Barreto. “There is a very good reason you see Republican Senate candidates distancing themselves from Trump in October, he's not helping them at all.”
If Jackson’s campaign has been successful in tying Collins to Trump and turning the race into a referendum on his presidency, the incumbent senator may discover that the political independence that has sustained her for three decades may have reached its limits.
View 0 Comments
Submit Correction
View Editorial & AI Guidelines