DORAL, Oct 21: Early snow is already dusting the northeasternmost US state of Maine, where a canny 73-year-old Republican senator is having to run the race of her life to help save Donald Trump's party from being frozen out of power nationwide.
Susan Collins has held her Senate seat for three decades, becoming a near immovable fixture in the state's political landscape.
But with President Trump deeply unpopular nationwide and Mainers furious about surging fuel prices ahead of winter, Collins's Democratic challenger is eying an upset -- and a chance to make his party's outside bid to regain the Senate a reality.
The stakes are enormous in the race between Collins and logger-turned-politician Troy Jackson, as Maine is crucial for any Democratic path to a US Senate majority.
While Democrats are forecast to win the House of Representatives in the November 3 midterms, they would need to clinch the Senate too if they want to stop Trump's right-wing agenda in its tracks, including his power to nominate Supreme Court justices.
- Time for change? -
About one-third of Maine's voters are unaffiliated with either party. Because independents generally are opposed to Trump nationwide, that could work to Jackson's advantage.
Most voters interviewed by AFP agreed that Collins had done well in funneling federal funding back to Maine over the years and that 58-year-old newcomer Jackson would not be so successful.
But like many Mainers, retired teacher Louisa Beckett believes a perfect storm of national setbacks -- cost-of-living hikes, the Iran war, and allegations of massive Trump corruption -- could finally sink Collins.
"She does a lot for the state of Maine," Beckett said while attending a "No Kings" anti-Trump rally.
"However this is much, much bigger than the state of Maine," added the 80-year-old. "It's about our democracy, it's about our Constitution."
- Divided communities -
Both Collins and Jackson hail from the same sparsely populated, heavily forested northern county of Aroostook, bordering Canada.
Logging, hunting and cross-border trade are the focuses there -- but these days, so is politics and the price of fuel.
Fiery arguments have broken out among patrons at Rock's Family Diner in the Aroostook frontier town of Fort Kent.
The divisions are even visible in Jackson's remote hometown of Allagash, where red Collins signs are visible outside some houses in the community of 227 people.
Hilton Hafford, 68, said he was all for his local friend Jackson, but added with a grimace: "My sisters and brother are on the other side."
A retired logger who guides moose hunts, Hafford said Jackson will be the best to push back against Trump in Washington.
But Collins's main pitch is that despite being a Republican she has already proven sufficiently independent from Trump's most extreme policies.
"The most remarkable thing she manages to do is to insulate herself from the unpopularity of a president in the same political party," University of Southern Maine political science professor Ron Schmidt told AFP.
"Even the (Mainers) who aren't crazy about her have a certain amount of 'the devil you know is better than the devil you don't' attitude towards her."
And yet some experts believe Collins is deeply vulnerable, with diesel and heating oil prices soaring.
Maine is America's most heating oil-dependent state, and residents expressed outrage at how fixed-income households could suffer this winter.
- 'Hardcore Democrat' for Collins -
Maine has not backed a Republican presidential candidate since 1988, but it's far from a Democratic stronghold, with voters regularly choosing Republicans for Congress.
In Collins's hometown of Caribou, brewery owner and Collins supporter Shawn Pelletier said the senator does face "a lot of headwind."
But Collins retains considerable loyalty from across society.
"My father is a hardcore Democrat, and he has a Susan Collins sign on his lawn," Pelletier said.
Part of the appeal, said Brandon Lane, a 37-year-old who runs outdoor adventures company Allagash Guide Service, is that Collins exerts her power in Washington to help Maine, including negotiating exemptions on Canadian goods like road salt.
"With Susan Collins, you know what you're getting," he told AFP.
Polls show the candidates mostly neck and neck. Yet Maine is notoriously hard to poll accurately -- and Collins is a survivor.
In 2020 she trailed her Democratic challenger in pre-election polling. Then she won by nine points.