Millions of dollars is being spent on supporting candidates and attacking opponents in the Maine Senate race, as the Democrat Troy Jackson attempts to unseat the three-decade incumbent Susan Collins.
Data from AdImpact—a media analytics firm—shows over $1.6 billion has been spent on advertising associated with 2026 Senate races, led by Ohio at $407 million, Texas at $281 million and Maine at $195 million. Axios analysis of the figures revealed that, on a Per-capita basis, Maine’s Senate race is proving to be the costliest in the nation, with Republicans spending $96.99 per adult compared to $69.52 by the Democrats.
This comes under a month out from Election Day, and as both candidates struggle to secure a concrete edge over their opponent. Most surveys have Jackson with a slight lead, though Collins has overcome significant polling disadvantages in the past and gone on to win reelection handily.
Newsweek has contacted both campaigns via email for comment and is awaiting responses.
Where Is the Money Coming From?
According to AdImpact’s figures adjusted for population size, Republicans and Democrats are spending enough to give each voting-age resident $166.51. The Pine Tree State is followed by Alaska at $134.65 and Iowa at $66.96—two Senate races which are also in toss-up territory.
...
And while Republicans are exhibiting a far greater willingness to spend—and better fundraising abilities—the disparity is especially noticeable in the case of the contest between Collins and Jackson.
How Is Susan Collins Being Financed? What To Know
An estimate from The New York Times in July found that the five-term senator has benefited significantly from her party’s major campaigning arms, which had by then already committed $113 million toward her reelection bid. This figure has swelled significantly, with much of the support coming from GOP groups like the Senate Leadership Fund—the party’s most prominent super PAC—and the Maine-focused Pine Tree Results PAC.
The former, according to the Maine Morning Star, had by June spent $29 million on ads supporting Collins—then running against Graham Platner, who dropped out of the race in July.
Pine Tree Results PAC, formed specifically to back Collins’s reelection bids, has spent over $12 million last year and in 2026, according to filings with the Federal Election Commission (FEC).
The incumbent senator has also received backing from organizations like Stronger Maine and Elon Musk’s America PAC. And a June analysis of Federal Election Commission (FEC) finance data by Maine Monitor found that dozens of billionaires had together donated $9.8 million to supporting Collins since the beginning of 2025.
This week, it was also revealed that another super PAC, Defending Main Street, had spent around $25,000 in advertising against Jackson in Portland, Oregon rather than Portland, Maine. The group told Newsweek these ads were "immediately stopped and corrected" once the mistake was noticed, and that the vendor behind the mistake would be refunding the group the full amount.
How Is Troy Jackson Being Financed? What To Know
Jackson’s campaign has yet to submit a quarterly financial disclosure report to the FEC—a product of his late entry into the race—and has only a few days to do so to give Mainers insight into his camp’s own fundraising practices ahead of the vote. But he has like Collins benefited from millions of dollars of outside support, albeit at a far smaller scale.
VoteLog, a campaign finance tracking website, said much of Jackson’s outside support—around $19.8 million—has come from WinSenate, a super PAC tied to the party’s Senate Majority PAC. In early September, the group spent $2.1 million on an ad campaign touting his record on health care coverage when compared with Collins.
...
FEC filings show that the newly formed Government That Works PAC has also, through August 11, spent $1.6 million supporting Jackson and $350,959 opposing Collins’s reelection. This included over $1 million on a pro-Jackson ad campaign.
And Jackson has also been the beneficiary of spending by Planned Parenthood, which is pouring close to $50 million into races across the country.
Planned Parenthood had in the past praised Collins as one of the "Republican lawmakers who champion reproductive health care issues and who fight to ensure the rights granted to women." However, the organization announced in August that its super PAC, Planned Parenthood Votes, would be spending "over $600,000” on an ad campaign highlighting "Maine voters' disapproval of Sen. Susan Collins’s anti-abortion votes, including her vote to confirm Brett Kavanaugh."
Will Spending Make a Difference?
"Polling indicates this race is competitive, the majority party control in the U.S. Senate is at stake and the Maine media market is a relatively lower cost market to get on the airwaves," Phil Harriman, a political commentator and former Maine Republican state senator, said when asked why so much was being spent on the contest.
However, Harriman told Newsweek with under a month to go before Election Day, "the advertising barrage is numbing, voters are ignoring the ads, [and] very few people have not decided whom they are going to vote for."
In the context of the Texas Senate race between Republican Ken Paxton and Democrat James Talarico, the GOP political consultant Brendan Steinhauser told Newsweek that high levels of spending on Paxton could reveal acknowledgment of both the race’s importance to both parties, as well as potential insecurities about his candidacy.
...
Similar undercurrents appear to be present in Maine, with Jackson leading in most polls despite his late entry into the race. And the Maine-based political consultant and longtime Democratic strategist Toby J. McGrath said that the party appears to be mounting its strongest challenge yet to Collins—the D.C. Democrat's white whale for 30 years—and her Main Street Republican reputation.
McGrath told Newsweek that Democrats have consistently tried to "nationalize the race instead of localizing it," but that Jackson appeared to be successfully doing both with his campaign, and by pairing national issues like the Iran war and abortion with allegations of corrupt financial practices by Collins "at the expense of Mainers."
In this context, McGrath said that the fundraising and spending "isn't as important as the message."
"Case in point? Troy is being considerably outspent by Susan and the needle hasn't moved all that much," he added.
Collins vs. Jackson: What Latest Polls Say
Polls have yet to show either candidate holding a decisive advantage. Jackson has led in most, however, including a Washington Post/Schar School poll released on Friday. This showed him with a four-point lead over Collins.
Many surveys including this one sit within their respective margins of error, however, and 10 percent of respondents to a CBS survey conducted September 23-October 1 said they might still change their minds before Election Day.
Jackson has also been grappling with an apparent visibility issue. A coefficient survey conducted September 28-30 found that 16 percent of the 1,240 polled likely voters had no opinion on Jackson, compared with 9 percent for Collins. A New York Times/Press Herald/Siena Poll—conducted September 15-22 among 619 likely voters in Maine—also found that 6 percent had "not heard of" Jackson, while an additional 4 percent did not have or offer an opinion on him, compared to less than 0.5 percent and 1 percent, respectively, for Collins.
However, this was before the candidates kicked off their debates, the third of which is taking place on Tuesday evening.
As of Tuesday morning, the polling aggregator Decision Desk HQ had Jackson at 49.3 percent and Collins at 47.1 percent.
Newsweek’s reporters and editors used Martyn, our AI assistant, to produce this story. Learn more about Martyn here.
Contact Newsweek editors on this story: Daniel Orton and James Debens