Maine Republican Susan Collins has defended her reputation as one of the most independent U.S. senators, and she’s using the final days of the election season to get that message to voters by campaigning with a former Democratic colleague who endorsed her.
Collins is trying to fend off a challenge from Democrat Troy Jackson, a former state Senate president, and on Wednesday she made appearances with Joe Manchin, a West Virginian who became an independent late in his career before retiring.
After stopping for breakfast at Simones’ hot dog stand in Lewiston, Collins discussed how she and Manchin were “part of every bipartisan piece of legislation that was passed and became law” during their tenure together.
Manchin said losing Collins would be like “losing the soul of the Senate.” He praised her independent streak, her willingness to oppose Republican President Donald Trump and her record of fighting for Maine’s interests.
“She’s a real blue-blooded person from Maine who knows exactly where she comes from,” Manchin said.
They then arrested a New Balance shoe factory in Norway. Jackson, 58, is scheduled to campaign Thursday in Portland with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the progressive congresswoman from New York.
Collins, 73, is in what could be her toughest re-election fight as she seeks her sixth term.
It’s only the second time she’s sought re-election in the midterms with a sitting Republican president, and national trends are far less favorable to the Republican Party than the last time she did so, in 2002. Trump’s approval has fallen well below what it was when he took office last year, and a recent poll from the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research found that a strong majority of voters want change in Washington.
“We need more people like Susan Collins”
Collins is working to persuade voters that she is independent of Trump and ready to break with him. In Manchin, she enlisted a politician who was one of the Senate’s most moderate voices. Manchin said in 2023 that Trump would “destroy democracy in America” if elected to a second term.
Among the few dozen Collins supporters at the Lewiston event was Mike Marcotte.
“I may not have always been a fan of all of her votes, but when I look at the vitriol in the United States Senate right now, we need more people like Susan Collins,” he said.
Jackson got a late start to his campaign after the party’s initial candidate entered the race, but he trails Collins in the race by less than $3 million after an aggressive quarter in which he raised more than $20 million. Jackson campaigned tirelessly and his events attracted hundreds of people. Collins has largely stuck to smaller appearances.
Some Jackson supporters demonstrated in front of the hot dog stand. A few held signs bearing the image of Brett Kavanaugh, the U.S. Supreme Court justice whom Collins voted to confirm and whose vote ultimately helped overturn the constitutional right to abortion.
“Someone needs to stand up and control Donald Trump and his harmful policies,” David Sysko said.
Collins’ loyalty to Trump was central to the race
Collins has broken with Trump and Republicans over the years. She voted to convict him during his impeachment trial in 2021. Increasingly during the campaign, she worked to distance herself from the president, with Democrats saying she was too close to him.
Collins said in early October that she was “not exactly his favorite senator” and that she didn’t expect Trump to campaign in Maine. He stayed away from the state in the run-up to the Nov. 3 election.
Pairing Collins with Trump is at the heart of the Democrats’ strategy. In one ad, a nurse claims the state is in a health care crisis “because of Susan Collins and Donald Trump,” citing Collins’ vote in favor of Trump’s push for Medicaid cuts. Collins voted in favor of the bill, but ultimately voted against it.
Trump was also at the center of four contentious debates between the candidates this month, during which Collins sought to distance herself from the president and Jackson repeatedly accused her of carrying out Trump’s orders.
When asked during the final debate to name a time when she stood up to her own party and succeeded, Collins gave the example of rallying support against Trump’s nomination of Pete Hegseth, who was confirmed as defense secretary.
Democrats seized the opportunity and issued a statement that said the exchange “underscores a central question in Maine’s Senate race: Does Collins, a Republican in a state that disapproves of President Donald Trump and has turned bluer in recent years, stand up enough to her party to deserve the independence she has staked her career on?”
Jackson called Collins out of touch with the struggles of Maine’s working class. He described Collins as a “rubber stamp” for the president and criticized his votes on Kavanaugh and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Trump’s second-term health secretary. Collins said she did not regret either vote.
Republicans portrayed Jackson as a tyrant
Republican ads against Jackson, a northern Maine logger, have focused more on accusations that he has an unstable personality and behaves like a bully around his female colleagues. Jackson has denied the accusations.
Collins distanced herself Wednesday from a Republican super PAC attack ad that she said “should be taken down.”
The senator was one of Democrats’ top targets in 2020 when she beat challenger Sara Gideon by nearly 9 percentage points. Collins is New England’s only Republican senator, a distinction she has held since January 2013.
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