Collins, Jackson make their closing appeals in Maine’s pivotal US Senate race

The communications equipment for Winthrop’s emergency dispatch network had been failing almost daily, leaving the roughly 18,000 people across Kennebec County who rely on it with unreliable service. So, the town manager reached out to U.S. Sen. Susan Collins. 

Collins, from the helm of the Senate Appropriations Committee, walked them through the process to secure federal earmarks, getting them a little more than $1.1 million earlier this year to purchase new equipment, including a tower that will more than double the range of wireless emergency communications. 

“It’s not a want. It’s a need,” Paul Ferland, police chief of both Monmouth and Winthrop, said after giving Collins a tour of the department on Thursday. “And for this community to take it upon themselves monetarily, it was just not feasible to get it done any time in the future.” 

This is one of several local stops Collins has made in her final days on the campaign trail before the Nov. 3 election, when she hopes to secure a sixth term. Meanwhile, her Democratic challenger, Troy Jackson, has spent his last days hosting public forums, events with high-profile national figures and press conferences highlighting Collins’ ties to President Donald Trump.  

Democrats view Collins’ seat as a key pickup opportunity in their efforts to gain more control in the U.S. Senate, and they’re hoping time has run out on the senior senator’s staying power given the Trump administration’s increasing unpopularity. 

“There are folks in the United States Congress, in the House and the Senate, that will not stand up to this president, regardless of what he decides to do,” U.S. Sen. Mark Kelly of Arizona said while stumping for Jackson in Brunswick on Wednesday. “It’s not right.”

Coupled by a late burst of ads, the last leg of the most expensive race in state history has underscored the two opposing approaches each candidates’ campaigns have centered on. 

“That’s what it boils down to,” Collins said in Winthrop. “I’ve been able to bring $1.5 billion dollars to Maine to support projects just like this one. That’s a pretty powerful argument.” 

After the event with Kelly in Brunswick, Jackson said, “People that think that Senator Collins has been doing all this, bringing in all this money, I mean, look, it’s a pittance compared to what we’re losing.” He posed the following question to voters: “Do you think the government’s working for you?” 

Final appeals

Vietnam veteran Bill Jefferson was drafted into a war he opposed. Now, the Buxton resident harbors similar resentment about the United States’ war with Iran. That’s part of why he supports Jackson, who has publicly opposed the conflict. 

During an event Jackson held with veterans at Flight Deck Brewing in Brunswick, Jefferson also said Jackson’s support of universal healthcare and eliminating U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement factor into his support. 

A lifelong Democrat, Jefferson previously worked as an immigration inspector on the Canadian border. He saw an ad for the job after 9/11 and thought he could do something positive, he said. He felt he did, but now he is reluctant to talk about his time in that role because he is appalled by how federal immigration enforcement is being run today, noting a lack of training and respect for human rights. 

“We all know right now that what’s happening in this country is completely wrong,” Jackson told the crowd of about 30 people. 

Speaking next to Kelly, who said he is considering running for president in 2028, Jackson said he wants to work with him to help “get our democracy back, get our government back, get things in place that actually helps everyday people instead of the billionaire class.”

Jackson has gotten boosts from several prominent Democrats, including Democratic U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, independent Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, and Democratic U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts. Meanwhile, former U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, a Democrat turned independent, has campaigned with Collins. Trump has not visited Maine, but Vice President JD Vance praised Collins during his trip in August. 

As he has throughout the campaign,  during a press conference with the Maine Democratic Party on Friday in Portland, Jackson focused on Collins’ record of siding with the president the vast majority of the time. He also repeated his criticism of Collins voting to confirm Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who had a hand in overturning Roe v. Wade, during a fireside chat in Kittery with Planned Parenthood Action Fund President and CEO Alexis McGill Johnson on Thursday. 

At the same time, Collins was touting her federal earmarks in Winthrop. She pushed back on a reporter’s question about voters who said they want her to do more to stand up to Trump, listing off instances where she has clawed back funding, like the Sea Grant, and the rural healthcare fund she got put into the president’s signature spending law, which won’t offset the larger healthcare cuts in the law.   

“What I find that people are more interested in is the question, ‘Who can do more for the people of Maine?’” Collins said. “I think when I frame the question that way, the choice becomes very obvious.”  

Collins went on to say that even if Democrats win back the U.S. Senate, and she wins re-election, she’ll still have power. She’d then be vice chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, as she was before her current role as chair. 

“Given the bad decisions that have been made in Augusta, given the fact that we’re a low-income state and that we’re also a heavily taxed state and the state with the oldest population by median age in the country, we need that help,” Collins said. “We desperately need the help.”

The senator continued to spotlight the help she’s been able to provide by way of federal earmarks in subsequent stops, which included what will soon be a new childcare building in Greenville and the ribbon cutting of a new public safety building in Milo.

Eleventh-hour ads

Halloween provided both candidates with opportunities to speak directly with voters. At Cross Point Church’s trunk-or-treat in Bangor, Collins displayed a trunk decorated in honor of America 250. Meanwhile, Jackson trick-or-treated with families in Portland, dressed up as a “cord of wood,” a reference to an ad Collins’ campaign aired last week that he and others have criticized as classist. 

It features retired broadcaster Bill Green, who was also in an earlier Collins ad. In the new ad, Green says, “we’re not talking about buying a cord of wood here. We’re sending someone to the U.S. Senate, and Troy doesn’t have the tools he needs to be effective.”

In response, Jackson told reporters in Brunswick on Wednesday, “Well, if taking away healthcare for people, getting us into foreign wars, and giving billionaires tax cuts are the tools, then yeah, no, I don’t have those tools.”

He added, “I’m a working class person, got into the Maine Legislature, ended up being the Senate president for six years. I know how to get shit done. She’s just scared that she’s going to lose.”

This comes after most of the negative advertising in Maine’s U.S. Senate race had come from outside groups. More than $260 million has been spent on ads, according to the ad tracking firm AdImpact, surpassing the previous state record of $200 million spent in the 2020 race between Collins and Democrat Sara Gideon.

In the final ad put out by Jackson’s campaign, the Democrat says Maine’s U.S. Senate election will decide the direction of the country, whether it’s for billionaires and Trump or everyday people.  

“It won’t be easy, but I’ve learned if your heart is in the right place, you can make things better,” Jackson says in the ad. “I owe nothing to the billionaires or Trump. I owe everything to the people of Maine.”