Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) was first elected to the U.S. Senate in 1996 and has since served five terms. She’s been re-elected repeatedly, even as Maine has become bluer, and despite numerous near-misses.
In 2020, Collins was trailing in nearly all polls to Democrat Sarah Gideon but still won one more term, making her the longest-serving Republican in the Senate.
Donald Trump Speaking in 2024. Creative Commons Image.
Trump Happy Back in 2024 Creative Commons Photo
But on Tuesday, the 73-year-old Collins was finally defeated, as part of the massive blue wave that cost Republicans their control of both houses of Congress.
And the candidate who beat her, Troy Jackson, wasn’t even the Democrats’ first choice.
While many of the states Democrats flipped on Tuesday were red, Trump lost Maine in all three of his presidential runs, except for one electoral vote he won in each election, thanks to Maine’s proportional representation.
A Maine Flip
According to NPR, citing AP data, Democrat Troy Jackson won 53.8 percent of the vote, compared to Collins’s 46.1 percent, with 89 percent of the vote counted.
Jackson is a logger by trade who later served for many years in the state Senate, including stints as Senate president and majority leader.
He ran for governor of Maine in the Democratic primary and lost, but ended up as the Senate nominee after the original nominee, oyster farmer Graham Platner, ended his campaign amid accusations of sexual misconduct.
Jackson, NPR reported, “ran on a progressive populist platform, emphasizing both his working-class background and deep ties to the labor movement.” Like Democrats around the country, Jackson tied Collins to unpopular Trump policies and stances.
Among those were Trump’s tariffs, criticism of which was especially salient in Maine, which borders Canada.
Collins’ History
Throughout her time in the Senate, Collins occupied a unique place in the body: she was long one of the more liberal Republicans in the Senate, a Republican supporter of abortion rights, and a rare Republican representing a blue state in the Senate.
She has often served as a crucial vote on both parties’ legislative priorities, especially when one party has a slim Senate majority.
This led to frequent controversial votes that would upset one side of the political spectrum or the other.
Collins voted to confirm Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court in 2018. She voted against the Affordable Care Act, but later voted against attempts in Trump’s first term to repeal the health care law.
She has also sometimes clashed with Donald Trump during both of his terms.
In an analysis shortly before the election, The New York Times noted that Collins has opposed Trump more often than any other Republican senator, while rarely casting the deciding vote on major Trump priorities.
Live From the “Victory” Party
Over the years, it became a cliché that Collins would express “concern” over some action by Trump without doing much to stop him.
But in a report from Collins’ election-night party, The Atlantic noted that the senator showed “no hint of concern” that she might lose.
That is, until she did.
Maine, because it is so spread out, takes a long time to count its votes, and the call on the Senate race didn’t come until after midnight Maine time.
By then, Collins was long gone; when she called Jackson to concede, she didn’t deliver a concession speech to the thinned-out crowd.
“It has been the honor of my life to serve the people of Maine in the United States Senate,” Collins said in a statement after the race was called.
“Their national landslide proved far too big for a blue-state Republican to overcome,” The Atlantic said in its analysis. “And a race that both parties once thought might determine control of the Senate instead became just one more in an enormous pile of Democratic triumphs.”
Nobody knows if Troy Jackson will last nearly as long in the Senate as Susan Collins did.
But like all the senators who won full terms on Tuesday, Jackson will not only outlast Donald Trump, but his term will come up for re-election in 2032, the same year Trump’s successor as president will be up for a second term.
About the Author: Stephen Silver
Stephen Silver is an award-winning journalist, essayist, and film critic, and contributor to the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Broad Street Review, and Splice Today. The co-founder of the Philadelphia Film Critics Circle, Stephen lives in suburban Philadelphia with his wife and two sons. For over a decade, Stephen has authored thousands of articles that focus on politics, national security, technology, and the economy. Follow him on X (formerly Twitter) at @StephenSilver, and subscribe to his Substack newsletter.
