Democrat Troy Jackson defeated longtime Republican Sen. Susan Collins in Maine, according to NBC News, strengthening the Senate majority his party won in the midterm elections.
Collins was a prime target as the only Republican representing a state that Donald Trump lost two years ago, even though she has been up for re-election in Democratic-leaning Maine for decades.
Jackson and his allies worked to tie Collins to Trump, who never won Maine, amid his declining approval ratings. And Jackson has only had a few months to make his case, having become the Democratic nominee in late July after Graham Platner exited the race amid a sexual assault allegation, which he denied.
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“Senator Collins votes with Trump 96% of the time. The billionaire class is the class she’s fighting for,” Jackson said during one of their debates. Collins disputed this percentage.
Collins, meanwhile, noted that she was instrumental in bringing federal dollars to the state as chairwoman of the powerful Appropriations Committee.
“To be effective in the Senate, you need knowledge, experience, seniority and connections,” Collins said during one of the debates, later adding, “I’ve secured $1.5 billion for 672 projects across the state of Maine over the last five years.
But Jackson argued that Collins’ power did Mainers a disservice, suggesting she could have used her influence to block some of Trump’s major policies, like tariffs and war with Iran.
Jackson also criticized Collins for voting in favor of Trump’s sweeping tax and spending cuts, known as the “big, beautiful bill”, although Collins ultimately voted against final passage due to the measure’s Medicaid cuts.
“Tonight, Senator Collins told us how powerful she is. But power means nothing if you don’t use it when Maine people need it,” Jackson said during a debate.
Jackson also sought to establish himself in the working class as a former logger from northern Maine, and he was the first challenger from Collins’ home county to face him. Both Collins and Jackson are from Aroostook County, a remote part of the state. Republicans attempted to undermine Jackson’s speech by portraying him as a career politician who raised taxes.
Republicans also initially attempted to tie Jackson to Platner, although Jackson called on Platner to step down as candidate when the sexual assault allegation came to light.
But, like Platner, Jackson advocated liberal positions, including supporting “Medicare for All” and abolishing ICE. He campaigned with left-wing Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., in the final weeks of the race.
Although Jackson is a staunch progressive today, he has evolved since entering politics more than two decades ago.
Jackson decided to run for office after helping lead a loggers’ blockade on the northern border in 1998 to protest the hiring of Canadian workers. In 2000, he unsuccessfully ran for the House of Representatives as a Republican, but won a legislative seat as an independent in 2002. He later became a Democrat and later served in the state Senate, including as speaker of the chamber from 2018 to 2024.
Representing a rural area of the state, Jackson held conservative positions, particularly on abortion. But he said he evolved on the issue when he learned more about how “not getting abortion care could hold people back and hold them back economically.”
Although some of Jackson’s positions have evolved, his supporters say he has always maintained his focus on supporting working-class Mainers, dating back to his own tough upbringing in Allagash. Jackson has deep ties to many of the state’s unions, which helped him organize and win the Senate nomination after losing this year’s gubernatorial primary.
Jackson was also helped by a political environment strongly favorable to Democrats, as voters expressed concerns about Trump and his policies.
Collins had built a unique political brand in the state. In 2020, she won re-election by 9 percentage points even though Trump lost the state by 9 points that year. But this year, she couldn’t overcome the strong gravitational pull of anti-Trump sentiment, even as she tried to distance herself from Trump, who endorsed her for re-election.
Collins specifically criticized Trump’s trade war with bordering Canada. In 2021, she was one of seven Senate Republicans who voted to convict Trump during his impeachment trial following the January 6 riot at the Capitol.
“I’ve opposed the president when I think he’s wrong, and I’ve supported him when I think he’s right. And that independent approach has been the approach that I’ve always taken,” she told NBC News while campaigning this summer.
But that wasn’t enough to convince Mainers to return to the Senate, where she has served since 1997.
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