When it comes to midterms, Maine tends not to stick to the beaten track. Here’s why its Republican senator still has a chance
Hit hard by Donald Trump’s policies, Maine should be a guaranteed midterm win for the Democrats. But the state might need more than a man in faded denim to disrupt Trump’s final two years.
With next week’s midterm elections approaching in the US, Republican senator for Maine Susan Collins and Donald Trump are locked in an intriguing dance. Collins openly criticises the president’s decisions and he responds with policies to help her get re-elected. For a president who famously demands absolute loyalty and punishes dissent, he is surprisingly tolerant of criticism from the 73-year-old, five-term senator.
Fiercely independent Maine is a special case. It is solidly blue: the last Republican president it voted for was George H W Bush in 1988 and its two representatives are Democrats. Maine has two senators: one is an Independent who caucuses with the Democrats and the other is Republican Collins, who has held her seat since 1997. During almost three decades in Congress, she has gained great influence in the corridors of power and sits on the powerful Senate appropriations committee that oversees federal spending. As the Democratic Party tries to flip at least four Senate seats to regain control of the upper house, the state will be home to one of the most closely watched races this election.
According to conventional wisdom, Trump’s abysmal approval ratings – which are plummeting to historic lows as his unpopular war with Iran hikes up the cost of living – mean that his party will be punished with a rout in the midterms. But in Jackman, along the Canadian border, Mainers offer a word of caution. Predominantly a logging town, Jackman has fallen on hard times as the industry has suffered setbacks over the years, now compounded by tariffs and the soaring cost of diesel. “We don’t really fall for smoke and mirrors up here,” says chef Jason Shaw, who works at one of a handful of restaurants still in business. “We’re probably in the hardest economic area that there is, so we read the bottom line. We don’t really get caught up in the big political mess.”
In theory, people such as Shaw should be holding the Republicans responsible for their woes and flocking to Collins’s Democratic challenger, Troy Jackson. A fifth-generation logger from Allagash – a similar rural community close to the Maine-Quebec border – Jackson portrays himself as a quintessential working-class Mainer. He campaigns in worn-out denim and faded baseball caps, and speaks in his thick north Maine accent about his hardscrabble childhood.
It would be easy to assume that Jackson has it in the bag, especially since Trump’s trade war with Canada disproportionately affects US states along its border. Mainers who work in key industries such as logging and fishing are struggling to stay afloat with the cost of diesel, which has risen by about 75 per cent since the war in Iran began. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) operations in Maine are also deeply unpopular: a Colombian man was killed by an Ice officer in July.
But Collins has a track record of winning. From the logging forests to the fishing piers dotted along the coast, there are few industries in Maine that have not directly benefitted from her interventions. “They can point fingers all they want but she’s got a 30-year record and the most votes ever in a row by a senator – just go with that alone,” says lobster boat captain Rick Moody.
Troy Jackson’s campaign is struggling to undercut the perception of Collins as a centrist, bipartisan politician who is standing up for Mainers’ best interests in Washington. But one number kept coming up among Jackson’s supporters: 96 per cent, which they say is the rate at which Collins votes in line with Trump.
Collins keeps hitting back and, in recent debates, has criticised everything from Trump’s war with Iran to the Ice operations in the state. Trump, who knows how important the Maine race is, has responded not with his usual huffy hurt feelings but by announcing plans to lift tariffs on some Canadian goods. Republicans are doing all they can to push Collins over the line and keep the seat out of Democratic hands.
With just a week to go, polls show that the candidates are neck and neck. Some polls give Jackson a slim lead but, in 2020, Collins was also polling behind. While Joe Biden won Maine by nine percentage points that year, Collins beat her Democratic opponent by the same margin. Mainers might still have a few more surprises up their sleeves – and Democrats taking a win there for granted do so at their own peril.
