Democrat Troy Jackson is projected to win a stunning victory early Wednesday morning over Republican U.S. Sen. Susan Collins in a race that may help Democrats retake the U.S. Senate and blunt President Donald Trump’s agenda during the last two years of his final term.
Although the Associated Press had not yet called the contest as of 12:30 p.m., Jackson led Collins by over 5 percentage points with with two thirds of precincts reporting.
Collins conceded the race before the AP made the call.
“It has been the honor of my life to serve the people of Maine in the United States Senate. I'm proud of all I have been able to accomplish for our state and for our country in the past 30 years," Collins said in a statement. "I called Troy Jackson tonight to congratulate him and to assure him that my staff and I will work to ensure a smooth transition.”
The former logger and president of the Maine Senate denied Collins a historic sixth term with a hastily assembled campaign that repeatedly attacked the Republican for enabling Trump’s agenda.
"There was a lot of anger about what's going on in this country. I felt that anger, too. But there was also so much joy ... joy because they know this government is broken and the only ones who are going to fix it is us," Jackson said in a victory speech early Wednesday.
Collins had tried to run a hyperlocal race that kept Trump at a distance and instead emphasized her ascendance in the U.S. Senate and to the head of the powerful Appropriations Committee.
That formula worked for Collins six years ago when she fended off another well-funded Democratic challenger, Sara Gideon. This election presented more significant headwinds, including Trump’s unpopular war with Iran and its attendant effects on fuel prices, as well as a polarizing agenda that’s largely been unchecked by the current Republican-led Congress.
Loading...
Polls throughout the winding and chaotic contest consistently showed the majority of the Maine electorate dissatisfied with Trump’s second term and seeking to blunt his erratic agenda.
Still, Collins had long defied such headwinds and that electoral record seemed reflected in surveys showing the majority of Mainers expected her to win — even in polls showing Jackson leading.
Maine voters have long supported incumbent members of Congress for reelection and no sitting Senator had lost reelection since 1978, when Democratic Sen. William Hathaway was defeated by Republican William Cohen. Collins would eventually work for Cohen before winning his seat in 1997 after he decided not to seek another term. Cohen cited increasing partisanship in Congress as a reason for retiring.
Collins has built an image as a centrist during her nearly 30-year career in the Senate, a key to longevity for Maine politicians holding statewide offices. However, many Democratic voters soured on her during the first and second Trump presidencies. Her reelection in 2020 was decisive, but her vote share was nearly 18 percentage points worse than 2014, when she garnered more than 68 percent of the vote.
Jackson’s campaign capitalized on that declining support, highlighting Collins’ vote for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who voted to overturn the landmark Roe v. Wade abortion decision, as well as her votes for various Trump cabinet appointees and a procedural vote to advance the president’s signature domestic policy bill last year.
At the same time, Jackson highlighted his blue collar background and his long affiliation with organized labor.
"I'm a union member tonight and I'll be a union member when I walk into that Senate chamber," Jackson said in his Wednesday speech.
His platform closely resembled that of Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, the independent and de facto leader of the progressive wing of the Democratic Party. Its central planks are wealth inequality and universal health care, two issues starkly at odds with Trump’s unpopular alliance with wealthy interests and the slashing of Medicaid, which provides health coverage to low-income individuals — and about one third of Maine residents.
Jackson’s campaign began in late July, a significantly shortened window for a U.S. Senate campaign in a race awash in spending and electioneering by political action committees funded by wealthy interests, billionaires and secret donors. Republican groups put an emphasis on defending Collins’ seat, spending more than $130 million through an armada of super PACs and dark money groups. Democratic groups spent $94 million. The two sides combined to spend at least $224 million, a record total certain to climb higher as more spending is disclosed in campaign finance reports.
Spending was higher in other pivotal U.S. Senate races this year, but the Maine contest was the costliest per capita in the U.S.
Jackson was drafted by Democrats to replace Graham Platner, the progressive firebrand who coasted to the nomination in June after forcing Democrat Gov. Janet Mills to withdraw from the race a month before the primary election. Jackson and Platner shared the same policy goals, but Jackson, by his own admission, is not as charismatic of a communicator. Nevertheless, the Allagash native came to embrace the chance to take on Collins, an electoral stalwart whose image as a moderate had previously drawn centrist Democrats and independent voters who viewed her as an independent voice in the U.S. Senate.
