Collins Loses Ground in Maine Poll

A Hart Research poll published Thursday found that incumbent Sen. Susan Collins trails Democratic challenger Troy Jackson by 4 points among likely Maine voters. Roughly 49% of respondents said they would vote for Jackson compared to 45% for Collins. Six percent were undecided.

The path for control of the Senate, or at least for a narrower margin for Republicans, could run through Maine this November. The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee identified Maine in 2025 as a key target with potential to flip from red to blue. But their candidates have shifted three times in the past year alone. The DSCC at first supported former Gov. Janet Mills for the seat, who then suspended her campaign in the wake of oyster farmer Graham Platner’s political rise. Platner was then forced to end his own campaign after the primary due to allegations of sexual abuse. Now, Maine Democrats have nominated 58-year-old local politician Troy Jackson.

Collins is the longest serving woman in the U.S. Senate, representing Maine for 30 years. But she has never faced an election as close as November’s is expected to be, despite Democrats changing their nominee on short notice. Often considered a moderate Republican in Washington, when Collins last ran for reelection in 2020, her approval and disapproval ratings were essentially tied. The Hart poll found that 52% of Maine voters now disapprove of her job performance.

The RCP Average indicates Jackson is ahead by roughly 2.3 percentage points as of late July.

But the Hart poll might not show the whole story. The memorandum published with the poll results says that respondents were more likely to disapprove of Collins instead of Jackson after being presented with “the negatives” on both sides. But the memo does not explain which negatives respondents saw. The poll concluded around the same time that the National Republican Senatorial Committee released evidence that Jackson has fathered two sons with his second cousin, a longtime partner, but the two are not legally married. Genealogical records back up the assertion, but Jackson’s campaign has not commented on its veracity.

“Susan Collins will do anything to distract from the fact that she votes with Trump 96% of the time and has sold out working people in Maine. Personal attacks on Troy’s family are shameful and desperate,” the campaign told Fox News last week.

Jackson is a fifth-generation logger from Allagash who’s been involved in politics for nearly 30 years. In 2000, he ran for state House as a Republican but lost his race. In 2002, he ran again as an independent and won, officially joining the Democratic Party in 2004. Now considered a progressive Democrat, Jackson helped coordinate Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign in Maine in 2016. He was the president of the Maine Senate from 2018 to 2024.

The DSCC redirected funding to Jackson’s campaign after Platner dropped out. Since then, the committee has attempted to tie Collins to the Trump administration, but the White House has largely been silent on the race. Trump endorsed Collins and said she is needed to keep a Republican majority. Collins often disagrees with the president’s policies and has withheld votes for executive nominees. This week she announced she would not vote for nominee Todd Blanche to become the administration’s next attorney general.

Collins has also been raking in the cash. The Senate Leadership Fund, a Republican super PAC, already committed more than $42 million to Collins’ campaign. Collins had more than $11 million in cash on hand in July, according to federal filings. Furthermore, tech billionaire Elon Musk is planning a major spending push in Maine, according to reporting from The New York Times. He also plans to invest in get-out-the-vote efforts for Republican-leaning voters in the same states the DSCC targeted – Maine, Alaska, Iowa, Michigan, and Ohio – sources told ABC News.