Two weeks before the midterm elections, Democrats are comfortably favored to gain access to the House. Their path to control of the Senate, however, is more difficult — and it could go through Maine, where longtime Republican Sen. Susan Collins is in a tight race against former state Senate President Troy Jackson, a Democrat.
When Collins first ran for Senate in 1996, she pledged to serve only two terms in the Senate. But 30 years later, she is still in power despite everything, while Maine has become increasingly blue around her.
One of the secrets to her political durability is her success in “bringing in the bacon” for Mainers: Her official Senate website features a map of the projects she says she helped finance as chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, including hospitals, bridges, affordable housing, public transportation and water systems.
This year, however, all that money might not be enough for Mainers to overcome their frustration with another Republican: President Donald Trump.
To learn more about what Maine voters are thinking as they prepare to head to the polls, Today, explained co-host Sean Rameswaram spoke with Washington Post reporter Dan Merica, who is on the ground in Maine, about why some Mainers who previously supported Collins are now reconsidering their support.
Below is an excerpt of their conversation, edited for length and clarity. There’s much more to the full podcast, so listen Today, explained anywhere you get podcasts, including Apple Podcasts, Pandora, and Spotify.
Tell me how this race became so fascinating.
In Maine, this cycle was going to be interesting no matter what. Susan Collins is the only Republican senator running for re-election in a state that Kamala Harris won in 2024 this cycle.
But from the beginning, it really defined, I think, these midterm elections. The rise of Graham Platner, the oyster man turned politician, truly hints at the anti-establishment populist fervor that reigned among the Democratic base. This fervor was so strong that it prevented the incumbent Democratic governor from winning the primary here in Maine to challenge Susan Collins. I think that says a lot about the Democratic Party.
Obviously, Graham Platner’s campaign then heated up and he ended his campaign due to the sexual assault allegations made against him.
But then there’s the Collins view, and she’s really the flagship candidate for a Republican who, in this election where Donald Trump’s approval rating is so low, basically has to suspend any political gravity in a state that really doesn’t approve of the job he’s done as president.
I want to anchor this conversation to what Maine voters think of him right now because I know you’ve been talking to voters. What is the atmosphere like there? Are people crazy?
There is a lot of anger against the president here. Maine is in a unique position where it has been the target of much of what those angry at Trump would say is the harm he has caused.
It is a border state. It borders Canada. There are a ton of cross-border relationships. And so his attacks on Canada, his suggestion that this would be the 51st state, really hurt the state of Maine because it hurt tourism in the state. Many Canadians travel south to vacation in Maine. And there has been a decline in tourism because of this fight with Canada.
The tariffs have hurt Maine because much of the wood and lumber grown and cut here in Maine is actually shipped north to Canada to be processed, and then what is processed is then shipped back across the United States. The tariffs have been extremely detrimental to the state.
And then you have ICE. I’m in Biddeford. There was a shooting of an individual here in Biddeford. This has also been a problem in this race.
So there’s a lot of anger against the president, and it’s very easy to feel that when you’re talking to voters. In fact, I just spoke with a voter who voted for Troy Jackson and who cast his ballot in a ballot box to vote early. And I just asked him, “Why did you vote? Who did you vote for? Why did you vote?” And he became visibly emotional when he started talking about the Trump administration and how scared he was for the future of democracy and that’s why he voted for Troy Jackson.
I also spoke to voters who supported Susan Collins just six years ago, at the end of the first Trump administration. They voted for her then and they feel like the last six years have made it impossible for them to vote for her again. And then, on the other side, you have people who are die-hard Trump supporters and who actually think that Susan Collins has been too tough on the president.
She finds herself in a very difficult political situation: on her left, there are many voters, including some who voted for her recently, who are furious with her, who think she doesn’t stand up to the president enough. And then to her right, there are voters who think she stands up to the president too much.
It’s funny to think of these two figures representing the same political party, because while they may agree on a few things here and there, they couldn’t represent more different brands of Republicanism. What is the truth about Susan Collins siding with Donald Trump?
She has sometimes sided with the president. She has sometimes voted against the president. I was struck by the fact that during Thursday’s debate she said, “I’ve been a senator under five different presidents.” I don’t remember her number exactly, but she pointed out that she had only supported one Republican president, and that was George W. Bush.
I was just in Kennebunk, right next to Kennebunkport, a historic place for the Bush family. They have a big house in Walker Point. There is a certain relationship between the Bush family and Maine, (and it) makes sense that Susan Collins aligns herself more with the Bush-style Republican Party than she does with the Trump-style Republican Party.
What is his current relationship with the president? And he surely knows that she was one of the few Republicans to voted to impeach him following the insurrection of January 6. Is this hindering their relationship?
I think he’s very aware when someone breaks up with him. I imagine he is aware of it.
“It was a fascinating comment that there are rules for Republicans running across the country, but that maybe Susan Collins isn’t exactly required to follow those rules.”
In fact, a Republican told me early in the campaign that President Trump demands loyalty from the people he supports, but this person actually said that there are rules for Republicans and there are rules for Susan Collins and that Republicans are willing to give her some leeway, which is really an acknowledgment that they know the bind she’s in.
They know she’s running for office in a blue state, in a state that the president lost, in a state that is currently very hostile to the president. It was a fascinating comment that there are rules for Republicans running across the country, but that maybe Susan Collins isn’t exactly required to follow those rules.
Affordability is a huge issue in Maine, right? And Donald Trump didn’t really help…
It really increased the competitiveness of this race. The same race will still be competitive, but with gas prices where they are, and we’re moving into winter, it’s starting to get cold here. Home heating oil prices are over $6 per gallon.
I think about 80 percent of oil-heated homes are in the Northeast, with a large portion of them probably in Maine and New Hampshire, two states with Senate elections in November. This is a huge problem here.
The Trump administration actually tried to get rid of a low-income assistance program for home heating oil that helps many people in Maine. You’ve seen Republicans, from gubernatorial candidates to congressional candidates, break with the president on this issue because they know it’s a huge problem.
So when you talk about affordability, yes, we’re talking about the price of beef, the price of groceries, the price of gas, but there are also these localized issues in a state like Maine, in particular. And I think home heating oil could actually be a really fascinating and underappreciated issue in this race. If you grew up or live in Arizona, Nevada, or California, you don’t think about the heating oil you need to heat your home. This could be a real problem here in a state like Maine.
Collins is a political survivor. That all of this is collapsing because, essentially, of the identity of the president, is that a somewhat sad end for her to this political story? Do you think she might regret the way she approached Donald Trump?
It’s certainly possible. And you saw other senators who stood up to the president and then retired and didn’t run for reelection. I am thinking, for example, of Thom Tillis, in North Carolina. There’s this fascinating case study of how the Republican Party has changed when you look at Susan Collins and Donald Trump.
Someone like Susan Collins in a previous iteration of the Republican Party would have been very successful and probably would have remained within the Republican Party in a way that she simply did not do under Trump. She represents another era of the Republican Party.
I think there was a time when bringing in the bacon for a small state really worked politically. I think for example of Harry Reid: he represented Nevada. In 2010, he faced a very tough re-election campaign and his entire campaign was about bringing home the bacon to Nevada, an equally small state, and he was re-elected in 2010.
I think if Susan Collins is re-elected in 2026, it will prove that there is still a lot of good will from politicians who can fund projects for states like Maine, states like Nevada, smaller states that maybe don’t get the kind of national attention that others do.
If she loses, much of that defeat will fall on President Trump. I’ll be fascinated to talk to her if she loses, because I think she’ll have a lot to say that she probably hasn’t said yet, but I think that’s an if, and I think we still have two weeks to find out.
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