Democrat Troy Jackson defeated five-term Republican Susan Collins in Maine, giving the party their seventh flipped seat and expanding their new majority.
Jackson, a former state Senate president and fifth-generation logger prevailed in a turbulent race focused on rising living costs, including record heating oil prices, and Collins’ ties to President Donald Trump. Jackson — who jumped into the race late after the previous nominee, Graham Platner, dropped out — argued that Collins’ reputation for independence masked a record of supporting the president when it mattered.
“I called Troy Jackson tonight to congratulate him and to assure him that my staff and I will work to ensure a smooth transition,” Collins said in a statement. “It has been the honor of my life to serve the people of Maine in the United States Senate.”
Collins had turned back challengers for nearly 30 years by emphasizing her moderate positions and ability to bring federal money to Maine. She won reelection in 2020 even as Trump lost the state by nine percentage points, serving as the only Republican in New England’s congressional delegation. No Republican presidential candidate has carried Maine in almost four decades.
A long-time champion of organized labor from rural northern Maine, Jackson ran as a progressive, calling for higher taxes on the wealthy and for US Immigration and Customs Enforcement to be abolished.
Jackson, 58, had little time to build his campaign. He became the Democratic nominee in July after Platner, a progressive oyster farmer, ended his candidacy following a sexual assault allegation, which he denied. Platner had rocketed from obscurity to national prominence by bashing billionaires and his own party’s establishment, but his campaign was dogged from nearly the beginning by controversies, including his tattoo resembling a Nazi skull-and-bones symbol.
While Jackson lacked Platner’s commanding stage presence, he was relentless in attacking Collins, saying her occasional breaks with Trump did not excuse her support for him on consequential decisions. He singled out her 2018 vote to confirm Brett Kavanaugh to the US Supreme Court, helping establish the conservative majority that overturned the constitutional right to abortion four years later.
“What will it take for you to admit that you were wrong?” Jackson asked Collins during one of their debates.
Jackson also repeatedly raised a ProPublica report published in September that said Collins had been probed by the Federal Bureau of Investigation over whether she took campaign funds in exchange for steering contracts to a defense company. An FBI spokesperson told the news organization that the agency found nothing to implicate Collins, and she has denied any wrongdoing.
The race was one of the nation’s most expensive. Like other Republican Senate candidates, Collins’ campaign was buttressed financially by political action committees funded by the likes of Elon Musk and Ken Griffin. She and outside groups flooded airwaves with ads blaming Jackson’s state legislative leadership for rising costs, including an increase in property taxes and electricity rates.
All told, the two parties spent more than $255 million on advertising through Oct. 29, according to AdImpact, with the GOP outspending Democrats.
Ultimately, though, Collins was unable to withstand the political gravity of representing a state that has long favored Democrats with a politically unpopular president in the White House.
She repeatedly sought to demonstrate her independence from Trump by criticizing the Iran war and opposing tariffs on Canada. She also emphasized the benefits of working with the administration, including securing tariff exemptions for products such as road salt.
Jackson turned that example against her during one of their debates, saying that Maine residents struggling to afford necessities “can’t eat road salt.”
This report is auto generated from the Bloomberg news service. ThePrint holds no responsibility for its content.