Maine Women Voters Gave Collins Her Last Win. Can Jackson Take Them Back?

The Only Race That Actually Matters for Senate Control

Democratic officials are not being subtle about what Maine means to them this cycle. As NPR reports, Collins is the sole Republican incumbent defending a Senate seat in a state Trump lost last year. If Democrats want a majority, they almost certainly need this seat. That is the entire math. That is the whole equation.

And yet the path to flipping it runs directly through one of Collins' most reliable sources of strength: women voters. In 2020, women made up nearly 60% of total turnout in Maine. They voted for Joe Biden by 23 points. Then they turned around and voted for Susan Collins by three. That is not a typo. The same group of voters chose Biden and Collins on the same ballot, which tells you everything you need to know about how this state actually works.

Troy Jackson's Starting Position: Already Complicated

Democrats did not exactly hand Jackson a clean runway. Their original nominee, Graham Platner, suspended his campaign last month after an allegation of rape, which he denies. Platner had energized the progressive base before his implosion, and Jackson, a former state senate majority leader, was selected to replace him with about three months to go until November.

Jackson's baggage is different and considerably lighter than his predecessor's, but Republicans are making sure nobody forgets any of it. According to NPR, the GOP has already spent millions in ads trying to tie Jackson to Platner while hammering reports that Jackson has a history of shouting matches with colleagues. Jackson has admitted to those incidents and apologized for them. He has never been accused of sexual violence. Republicans are betting that distinction won't matter to enough voters if they can make the general vibe around him feel chaotic.

Stacy Leafsong, a progressive organizer and domestic violence survivor who was actually an early Platner supporter before cutting ties with him over concerns about his behavior, is now backing Jackson. But even she acknowledged to NPR that the job ahead is real: "He really needs to speak to the women in Maine, and really convince them that he's going to advocate well for them."

Collins, Kavanaugh, and the Abortion Problem She Cannot Shake

Here is the central tension of Susan Collins' political identity, and she has been living inside it for four years now. Collins has always presented herself as pro-choice. She voted against legislation that would have gutted abortion protections. She issued carefully worded statements. She trusted Brett Kavanaugh when he told her, in a private meeting, that Roe v. Wade was settled precedent. She cast the deciding vote to confirm him to the Supreme Court in 2018. Then in 2022, Kavanaugh voted to overturn Roe.

This is the first time Collins is back on the ballot since that happened. Democrats are treating her Kavanaugh vote as the original sin of the race, and Jackson has been hitting it consistently. Speaking to Maine Public Radio last month, Jackson said, "She's made sure that everyday people across this country have a real challenge to get abortion access." Collins, for her part, told reporters in June that she does not regret confirming Kavanaugh. Her campaign called Jackson's current pro-choice stance a "conversion motivated by political convenience."

That framing is not wrong on the facts. Jackson entered politics as an abortion rights opponent and shifted his position over time, eventually voting to expand access post-Roe. It is a genuine evolution, or a genuine flip, depending entirely on how generously you're reading it. Collins' campaign is betting Maine women will read it uncharitably.

What Voters Actually Say They Care About

For all the strategic importance of the abortion argument, NPR's reporting from the ground in Maine suggests the thing driving voters most urgently right now is the economy. Not Kavanaugh. Not Platner. Not shouting matches in Augusta. The cost of groceries, of housing, of getting by.

This is not a Maine-specific phenomenon, but it does complicate the playbook for both sides. Jackson needs to win women voters on a combination of economic anxiety and reproductive rights. Collins needs to hold enough of them while surviving a political environment that has gotten considerably more hostile to Republicans since her last race. Emily Cain, a former state senator and former executive director of Emily's List, told NPR that independents are close to a third of Maine's electorate, and most of them are women. "The people who decide statewide races typically are independents who are also a majority women," she said. That is the universe both campaigns are fighting over.

Why This Race Defies Easy Prediction

Collins has survived races she was not supposed to survive. She has won in cycles where Democrats were running up the score everywhere else. She has spent decades building a brand around independence from her own party, and Maine voters have repeatedly rewarded that brand even when they were voting for Democratic presidential candidates in the same breath.

But 2026 is not 2020, or 2014, or 2008. The post-Roe political environment has reshuffled the math for Republican women incumbents in ways that are still being measured. Collins is running in a state that rejected Trump twice now. Her party controls Washington and has not exactly been quiet about its contempt for reproductive rights. The three-point margin she held among women last time was always thin. This year, it might need to be a lot more than three points to feel safe.