Maine's Senate Race Is a Toss-Up and a War Nobody Wanted Is Why

The Road Both Candidates Know

Collins and her Democratic challenger, Troy Jackson, were both born in Aroostook County. Collins grew up in Caribou. Jackson is from Fort Kent, about 40 miles north. They both know U.S. Route 1, the two-lane road that stitches the county together. This fall, as NPR reports, a few campaign signs for each of them have joined the amber leaves along its shoulder.

Statistically, this race is a toss-up. That is not the usual condition for a five-term Republican senator in rural Maine. Andrew Smith, director of the University of New Hampshire Survey Center, which runs polling in the state, told NPR that Aroostook County voters, who backed Obama in 2012 and Trump in 2016, could be the deciding factor in November.

"If the rural voters come out and vote strongly, they'll likely vote for Susan Collins," Smith said. The operative word there is "if."

The Enthusiasm Problem Nobody Wants to Talk About Out Loud

Smith told NPR that both candidates have enthusiasm problems, which is a polite way of saying neither of them is exactly setting the county on fire. Jackson is a late entry into the race. The original Democratic nominee, Graham Platner, dropped out after allegations of rape that he denies. Jackson, a former union organizer for loggers and a longtime presence in Maine's state legislature, stepped in.

"It probably helps Susan Collins that Platner is not on the ticket because Jackson doesn't have that enthusiasm, doesn't bring that charisma to the race," Smith said. And yet, in the same breath, he acknowledged this is shaping up to be a good year for Democrats nationally, which is its own kind of structural headwind for Collins.

Aroostook County Republican Committee Chair Christopher Lydon pushed back on the enthusiasm framing when NPR visited the party's Caribou headquarters. He is confident Collins has her base. He is less confident about what it costs to drive to the polls.

Gas, Heating Oil, and a War That Was Supposed to Be Over by Now

Here is the core problem for Collins. The Iran war has sent gas prices up. Heating oil prices in Maine are climbing ahead of winter. And in a state where, as Jackson booster Matt Schlobohm of the Maine AFL-CIO told NPR, "folks in Aroostook County and all over Maine drive a lot," that is not an abstraction. It is a line item that voters feel every week.

Schlobohm was direct about it: "Susan Collins voted and supported this foolish, reckless war in Iran that has directly made life harder for working Mainers." That is the attack line, and in a county where fuel costs are not rhetorical, it lands.

Lydon, sitting next to a life-sized cardboard cutout of Trump at Republican headquarters, told NPR the price spike is "a temporary thing" and that the president is "doing something that needed to be done." He did acknowledge the political damage. "People are angry about the price of gas and heating oil is coming up in the winter," he said. The comfort he offered was that it should be "better for the world" in the long run. Whether that plays in Caribou in November is another question entirely.

The Canada Problem Nobody Saw Coming

If the Iran war is the big story, the tariff fallout with Canada is the story running quietly beneath it that could matter just as much in Aroostook County specifically. The county sits about ten minutes from the Canadian border. That proximity used to be an economic asset.

Sabrina Haney, a 54-year-old Caribou resident who has lived there for 32 years and describes herself as a Trump voter, told NPR exactly what the tariffs have cost the community. "Canada, the people, used to come here and spend their money," she said. "Now that they put tariffs on there, they're just going to cut back and stay in their own country." She also noted that local farmers are raising their prices because they buy fertilizer from Canada. "It's ridiculous," she said. "We've always worked well with Canada."

Haney still backs Trump and plans to vote for Collins. But the fact that she is describing administration policy as "ridiculous" while simultaneously defending the administration tells you something about how much cognitive dissonance the base is currently asked to carry.

Twelve Dollars a Ticket to Heat a Two-Screen Cinema

In Fort Kent, 43-year-old Brandon Goding runs a small cinema with two 50-person auditoriums and, as NPR describes them, a pair of finicky projectors. Last winter, he raised ticket prices to $12 to cover fuel costs for heating the building. That detail is not a policy abstraction. That is a small business owner in a low-income county raising prices on one of the only affordable entertainments his neighbors have because a war drove up heating oil costs.

Maine is, as Haney put it plainly to NPR, "a poor state." The county seat, Caribou, is not a place with a lot of margin. Collins has carried Aroostook County by double digits in all five of her Senate victories. The Jackson campaign is betting that streak ends this cycle, and the price of heating oil is part of their argument.