Democrat Troy Jackson has defeated Republican incumbent Susan Collins in Maine’s Senate race, ending her nearly 30-year tenure in Congress and delivering Democrats a crucial victory in their effort to regain control of the Senate.
Jackson’s victory makes him the first Democrat to represent Maine in the Senate since 1995. Collins had built a reputation for winning in a state that regularly backs Democrats in state-level elections, but that record ended on Tuesday night.
As the longest-serving Republican woman in the Senate, Collins campaigned on her independence from her party and argued that Maine benefited from having a moderate representative in Washington.
“We have lost a lot of the centrists, and one of the reasons is we need people who will work across party lines,” she said during the final Senate debate in October.
The Democratic Party had identified Maine as one of its strongest opportunities to overturn a Republican seat, particularly as President Trump’s approval ratings fell to historic lows.
Jackson, a fifth-generation logger, became the Democratic nominee in August after Graham Platner suspended his campaign following an allegation of rape, which he denies. Despite joining the race late, Jackson maintained a strong challenge and polls showed the two candidates virtually level before voting ended.
He ran as a progressive populist, stressing his working-class background and links to the labour movement. His campaign also sought to associate Collins with Trump administration policies that Jackson said had contributed to economic pressures in Maine.
Those issues included higher oil and gas prices linked to the Iran war, as well as the strain on businesses caused by trade tensions with Canada, which borders Maine.
Expensive contest focused on Collins’s record
The contest was among the most expensive Senate races of the midterm elections, with Democratic- and Republican-aligned groups spending more than a quarter of a billion dollars on advertising, according to AdImpact.
Democrats challenged Collins’s claim to be an independent voice by highlighting her 2018 vote to confirm Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court. His confirmation strengthened the court’s conservative majority, which later overturned the constitutional right to abortion in 2022.
Collins has said she does not regret supporting Kavanaugh and has described herself as a supporter of abortion protections.
She also pointed to her role as chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, arguing that the influential position had helped secure more federal funding for Maine.
Jackson rejected that argument in an October interview, saying: “She’s losing more money than she’s bringing in. You know I keep saying, it would be great if she just stopped doing anything. We’d be better off.”
He added: “We’re losing a lot more; our healthcare, Iran war, tariffs. I mean, all these things are costing the state way more money than Susan Collins can ever bring in.”
Collins has voted against some Trump administration policies and has been described as the Republican senator most likely to break with her party. However, an analysis found that the frequency of those breaks had fallen significantly during the president’s second term.
Collins sought to make that record of occasional opposition central to her campaign, while Jackson argued that voters needed a sharper change in direction. His win now ends a Senate career that began nearly three decades ago and gives Democrats a key opportunity in their fight for a majority.
