Maine Republican Senator Susan Collins is entering the final weeks of her reelection campaign in a stronger position than she held before her surprise victory six years ago, even as powerful national headwinds threaten the Republican Party’s Senate majority.
Republicans currently hold a 53-47 majority, meaning Democrats need a net gain of four seats to take control of the chamber, because Vice President JD Vance would serve as tiebreaker in an evenly divided Senate.
Maine and North Carolina are among their clearest opportunities, but winning both would not be enough: Democrats would also need to hold every seat they currently control and prevail in at least two more Republican-held states, with Alaska, Iowa, Ohio and Texas among the expanded battlegrounds.
Recent election models have made Democrats narrow favorites for Senate control, although the outcome remains highly uncertain and rests on several closely divided races.
The broader political climate is unfavorable to Republicans.
An Associated Press-NORC survey conducted from September 24 to 28 among 2,140 adults, with a plus or minus 2.9 percentage point margin of error, found that 31 percent of U.S. adults approved of President Donald Trump’s job performance, while only 26 percent approved of his handling of the economy and 17 percent approved of his approach to the cost of living.
Civiqs’ national tracker also placed Trump at 34 percent approval and 60 percent disapproval among registered voters nationally on October 6.
His net approval rating, calculated by subtracting disapproval from approval, stood at minus 34 among Maine registered voters in the Civiqs polling.
Collins, however, has repeatedly demonstrated an ability to separate herself from the national Republican ticket in a state that Trump has never carried.
And she is more competitive than she was at the same stage in 2020.
Virtually every public poll late in the 2020 campaign showed Democratic challenger Sara Gideon ahead.
The final polling average put Gideon at 46.4 percent and Collins at 42.6 percent, with major surveys regularly showing Collins four to six points behind.
Collins nevertheless won by 8.6 points, taking 51 percent of the vote.
This year’s polls still show a close race, but the latest surveys have moved modestly toward Jackson.
The RealClearPolitics average on October 9 placed Democrat Troy Jackson at 48.3 percent and Collins at 47.3 percent.
Its underlying polls ranged from a four-point Jackson lead to a three-point Collins advantage, with three recording ties.
A Washington Post-Schar School poll released Friday placed Jackson ahead by 50 percent to 46 percent among 800 likely voters surveyed from September 30 to October 5. The margin of error was plus or minus 3.6 percentage points, placing Jackson’s advantage within the range of sampling error.
That does not make Collins the favorite. It means she enters the decisive phase from a position she would have welcomed in 2020.
The central question is whether Collins can again attract enough crossover support to separate her political identity from the Republican Party’s national standing.
Newsweek emailed the Collins and Jackson campaigns for comment on Wednesday morning.
Why Collins Looks Stronger Than in 2020
Three indicators distinguish Collins’ position from six years ago.
First is polling.
In 2020, she spent much of the campaign behind.
This year, neither candidate has established a durable lead, and the RealClearPolitics average separates them by less than one point.
Second is Collins’ personal standing.
A September New York Times/Portland Press Herald/Siena Research Institute poll found that 51 percent viewed her favorably and 48 percent unfavorably.
The poll surveyed 619 registered Maine voters from September 15 to 22, 2026, and had a margin of error of plus or minus 4.9 percentage points.
A comparable poll six years earlier put her at 50 percent favorable and 47 percent unfavorable.
That poll, which surveyed 663 likely voters, with a plus or minus 5.1-point margin of error, was conducted September 11 to 16, 2020.
Her ratings were almost unchanged despite another Trump presidency, the overturning of Roe v. Wade, and years of partisan conflict.
That stability matters because Collins relies on voters who do not consistently support Republicans.
She does not need Trump to carry Maine. She needs enough independents and Democrats to see her as distinct from him and valuable to the state.
Collins used Tuesday night’s first debate to reinforce the same argument, emphasizing both her independence from Trump and the practical benefits of her Senate seniority.
She said she was "not exactly his favorite senator" and highlighted $1.5 billion in federal funding she said she had secured for 672 Maine projects over the past five years.
Jackson sought to puncture that image, repeatedly linking her to Trump and challenging her over her vote to confirm Justice Brett Kavanaugh, asking voters: "Would you trust her to pick the next Supreme Court justice?"
Their October 8 rematch focused heavily on Iran, energy prices and each candidate’s independence.
Collins demanded an apology after Jackson accused her of benefiting financially from the war, an allegation for which he did not provide specific evidence during the debate.
Collins also defended her record of opposing the conflict.
Collins said she disagreed with Kavanaugh’s vote to overturn Roe v. Wade but continued to defend his confirmation.
Third is money.
Collins raised $26.5 million in 2020, compared with Gideon’s $68.6 million.
Her principal campaign committee reported $16.2 million in receipts and $11 million in cash on hand for the 2025-26 cycle through June 30, according to Federal Election Commission (FEC) filings reviewed by Newsweek.
The FEC cautions that newly filed data may take up to 48 hours to appear.
Even so, Collins’ financial position gives her a structural advantage over an opponent who entered the race in July.
A separate personal financial disclosure showed Jackson and his spouse holding assets worth between $147,000 and $430,000, compared with roughly $4 million to $10 million disclosed by Susan Collins and her spouse.
Because congressional disclosures report assets in ranges, those figures should not be treated as precise net-worth estimates.
Jackson’s campaign told Newsweek that the filing reflected "a lifetime of working for a paycheck," while Collins spokesperson Blake Kernen criticized his union consulting income and delayed filing.
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From an Oyster Farmer to a Fifth-Generation Logger
The Democratic campaign began with Graham Platner, an oyster farmer, military veteran, and small-business owner from coastal Maine.
Platner was raised in Sullivan and returned home in 2018 after serving in the Marine Corps and Maryland Army National Guard, including deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan.
The following year, he took over Waukeag Neck Oyster Company, while also running a mooring service and serving as the town’s harbor master.
His livelihood, shaped by cold water, weather and the health of the local ecosystem, gave physical form to his economic-populist message.
By late May, Platner had become the overwhelming Democratic favorite.
The University of New Hampshire Survey Center’s Pine Tree State Poll found that 76 percent of likely Democratic primary voters supported him, while 73 percent viewed him favorably.
Those findings came from 595 likely primary voters and had a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points.
Among 1,280 likely general-election voters, Platner led Collins 51 percent to 42 percent, with a 2.7-point margin of error. The wider survey of 1,397 Maine residents was conducted online from May 21 to 25, 2026.
Platner withdrew in July after allegations of sexual misconduct toward women, which he denied.
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A July 25 convention replaced him with Jackson, a fifth-generation logger from Allagash and former Maine Senate president.
Jackson’s campaign says he worked 80-hour weeks in the woods and entered politics after joining loggers in a 1998 blockade at the Canadian border.
Jackson could inherit Platner’s argument that corporations and wealthy interests were squeezing rural workers.
What he could not inherit was time: he had little more than three months to build a statewide campaign against an incumbent who has held the seat since 1997.
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The Unresolved National Risk
Maine rejected Trump in all three of his presidential campaigns.
Kamala Harris carried the state by 6.9 points in 2024, while the Senate race is rated a toss-up.
Jackson’s route is to make the contest a referendum on Trump, retain the Democratic coalition assembled by Platner and use his record as a logger and labor advocate to compete for rural and working-class voters.
Collins must persuade Mainers that her seniority, influence and ability to secure federal funding outweigh dissatisfaction with the president and Republican Party when they head to the polls on November 3.
Democrats produced one of the cycle’s most distinctive candidates, lost him after the primary and replaced him with another working-class populist.
They have still not pushed Collins into the consistently weak polling position she occupied before her last victory.
Collins enters the closing stretch with stronger polling and a much greater financial advantage than she had in 2020. The question is whether those advantages can withstand the national forces moving against her.
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: John Fitzpatrick and James Debens