Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Troy Jackson, the Democratic nominee for Senate in Maine, met for the first time at a debate Tuesday evening as the race enters its final weeks and as Collins maintains a slim lead over Jackson. The debate, however, was anything but a barn burner
The showdown between Collins and Jackson is the first four planned debates between the candidates squeezed into the final month of the election. However, if Tuesday’s debate ends up being representative of their tenor, it’s not clear what sort of impact they might have.
The debate covered a wide range of topics, including the prohibitively high cost of healthcare, surging fuel costs, President Donald Trump and the Republicans’ war against Iran, the Trump administration’s $70 billion immigration enforcement budget, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, Trump’s chaotic tariff regime, and the state of abortion access in the United States.
However, looming over the debate was Collins’ long track record of delivering Republicans crucial majority-making votes in the Senate when Republicans find themselves at risk of failing to pass a bill. And, it was clear that Collins sees her role as a partisan Republican as a vulnerability in the race.
Collins, for example, repeatedly denied that she voted with her party and Trump 96% of the time, as Jackson repeatedly said.
“I do need to respond to something that Troy has said twice now. He has said that I vote with President Trump 95% of the time. He is using a study that looked at only 30% of the votes. If you look at the study that looked at 90% of the vote, you will find that drops to 72%,” Collins said.
While it’s not apparent what alternative study Collins is referencing, Politifact has previously fact checked the claim that Collins voted in line with Trump’s position roughly 95% of the time and found it to be essentially correct. Likewise, tallys show that Collins, in 2025, voted in line with Trump’s position 95% of the time.
Collins even went on to claim that when former President Joe Biden was in office, she voted in line with Biden’s agenda 92% of the time, an likely reference to a FiveThirtyEight report from April of 2021 — just three months into Biden's term — that showed she voted in line with Biden’s positions 91% of the time after a few months.
A recent Bangor Daily News report paints a clearer picture of Collins, who overwhelmingly votes with Republicans — 72% of the time — when she has the opportunity to cast the deciding vote in the upper chamber.
Collins further attempted to distance herself from her party’s leader when asked about comments Trump made about potentially coming to Maine ahead of the midterms.
“President Trump this week said that he might actually visit Maine,” the moderator said. “Will you stand with him if he does?”
“I don’t think that President Trump is going to come to Maine. He’s talking about going to a lot of different states. I’ve heard nothing from his office, and I’m not exactly his favorite senator," Collins said.
When asked for a yes or no answer by the moderator, Collins responded, saying “I would say he’s not coming to Maine.”
The recent revelations of alleged corruption involving a committee supporting Collins’ political campaigns also loomed over the debate, with Collins insisting that the scheme, uncovered by ProPublica in a late September report, is false and offensive to her. She also repeated a claim that she was cleared by Biden’s Justice Department, despite the fact that the investigation only ended after Trump returned to office.
While Collins’ votes for Trump and her struggling to get away from the corruption allegations might have advantaged Jackson, the Democrat didn’t take advantage of the situation as much as a more experienced candidate might have. It was clear that Collins has more practice spinning a narrative in a televised debate.
The event was also free from the soaring rhetoric of former Democratic nominee Graham Platner, who ended his campaign after allegations that he had sexually assaulted a former partner.
In recent polling, the race in Maine has been close. A recent survey from the Maine People’s Resource Center and released by the Maine People’s Alliance found Jackson with a narrow lead over Collins, 49% to 47%. However, other recent surveys have found Collins with a narrow lead as well, indicating a toss up race.